Deviating doggies

Hmm... As titles go, that is possibly one of the dodgier ones I could have gone with. It doesn't help that, in setting the scene, I announce that  Roxy was in bed with me and Julie...

Does it help if I say that Roxy was on TOP of the duvet, while we were underneath? I hope so.

In any event, you all know by now that Roxy is a cuddlesome dog, mostly as a result of having spent the last three years of her life in a rescue centre pen.

D'awwww.

Yeah... As you can see, Roxy is not above sneakily cuddling up to you while you sleep. Impressive, considering that she is by no means a small dog.

Anyway, last Sunday, prior to a nice day out on the South Downs, we decided to have a lazy morning cuddle in bed. Of course, Roxy HAD to be involved.

Essentially, idle chit-chat and belly rubs were the order of the day (well, morning), and I'll leave it up to you to work out who took part in what.

After some time, Julie raised the idea of dressing up Roxy, something doesn't appeal to me at the best of times.

Obviously.

"Just for that, no pasta for you."
(and yes, I know that is Grumpy Cat, and not a Spaniel)

Long and wrong

The weather in the southern parts of Britain have not been what you could call clement lately. In fact, to paraphrase Robin Williams' character in Good Morning Vietnam, it has been (and apparently will be for at least a couple of weeks more) "wet and pissy with outbreaks of increasingly windy, wet and pissy."

(Real quote:
[imitating Walter Cronkite]
Adrian Cronauer: I just want to begin by saying to Roosevelt E. Roosevelt, what it is, what it shall be, what it was. The weather out there today is hot and shitty with continued hot and shitty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance of continued crappy with a pissy weather front coming down from the north. Basically, it's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut.)

If you haven't seen that film, do so.

Back in Eastbourne, the weather continues to be windy enough to go straight through you, rather than bothering to go around. And, because it's that time of year in the northern hemisphere,* it's a tad on the chilly side. That means that driving is a little cool on the hands - until the heating warms up enough that the steering wheel doesn't try and give you frostbite.

Yes, I have gloves. Yes, I have been wearing them. After a while, when things are a bit warmer, I take the gloves off and, if Julie is with me, pass them to her to look after while I do the driving.

Last night, we realised shopping was necessary - never mind us, the dog food was running low. Since Roxy enjoys going for a ride in the car, we took her with us and took the long way to Tesco. Eventually, the inside of the car reached a temperature that my fingers considered to be comfortable, so I doffed the gloves and gave them to Julie.

I may have been concentrating on driving, but I was vaguely aware that Julie was fiddling with my gloves; I never gave it much thought, to be honest.

After a moment of silence, just as I was about to drive us onto a junction, Julie announced this...

NOT what you want to hear as you attempt to negotiate a busy junction. I do have to admit, though, that I was most impressed with the way Julie managed to begin with a basic malapropism and then stutter her way into a snippet from Gilbert and Sullivan...

Again, many thanks to the internet, where almost any image you search for is but a few clicks away. Googling 'tentacles and testicles' yielded this beauty.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

* by the way, please spare a thought for people in the southern hemisphere. While Britain is being blown about and drowned, and the US and Canada are having ridiculously low temperatures, places like Australia are suffering with forest fires and the like. And when they have fires, they don't muck about. Be safe, my antipodean friends.

New old news

Even before we suspected anything was wrong, Dad was one of those people with an offbeat sense of humour and liked to look at things from skewed directions. He was also well known for being easily distracted and for getting his sentences tangled up.

When we finally noticed he was becoming even more vague than usual, we suspected Alzheimer's disease. The real cause, a massively aggressive brain tumour, floored us all.

As a tribute to my late father, I want to dedicate this week to him with three Gems (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Silly and yet sharp, he's still missed, and always will be.

--------------------------------------------------

My dad is the reason I'm a big fan of surreal humour. The Goons, Monty Python - even The Young Ones - all came to me via my father. It may have surprised some people, knowing him as a sober-looking besuited man with a very well-maintained beard, that he would have such a liking for these things. However, 'silly and surreal' was a very good way for him to let his hair down. One of our favourite things was to hold a conversation about nothing at all, with each sentence being replied with something that took the chat in another new direction.

"So, what do you think?"
"Orange. Definitely orange."
"Not square, then?"
"It's a close call, but square is very Marmite."
"True, true. The brakes make too much noise as it is."

See what I mean? Absolutely bizarre. This is why he and Julie would get on so well. In fact, they would take this conversational art and take it to new, utterly baffling (yet logical) extremes.

A few years ago, a new newspaper was launched in the UK.

Nice and cheap, the i is a news digest, meaning that all the stories are pared down to the minimum. In other words, no rambling articles where the same thing is repeated ad nauseum. As an added - or removed, possibly - bonus, there is very little in the way of celebrity crap. Even better, being a sister publication to The Independent, it is resolutely liberal and fairly open-minded. Unlike the 'newspaper' below...

Yes, it's a fake. Yes, that's me.

Originally, this newspaper was only published Monday-Friday. It was less than a year, though, that a Saturday edition was introduced for the stratospheric cost of 30p. Before that point, though, my dad and I had a conversation...

It took me far long than it should have done to work that out.

OBJEC...tion...?

I'm a bit late today, so I'll get right to it.

Today, Julie gives us an insight into a possible career change. One which would make Franz Kafka proud.

And before you say anything, no, I did NOT make a mistake in writing that down. It's just Julie thumbing her nose at Physics once more.

A half-half laugh

Some time ago, we were browsing the internet, looking for things to fuel our joint obsession. No, not naughty cigarettes, I'm referring (not reefer-ing) to our shared interest in hedgehogs.

Spike, Julie and their mascot, Reynard.

Originally simply my own mania, once Julie came to the Spiny Side, she quite happily fell in with my ways. We now have a glass-fronted cabinet quite literally crammed with various hedgehog figures - plus an echidna or two - a large amount of plush 'hog toys, and various other related knick-knacks. Reynard even has his own Facebook page, although he hasn't updated it since he got married and went on honeymoo.... what the hell am I even saying? It's a puppet!

Sheesh...

See? I said it was an obsession.

Any way, on a little stroll through the internet, we happened to chance upon a site that sold items of clothing with, among many other things, hedgehog-related images and phrases. We were particularly taken with a cap.

Yes, I know it's 'shopped. They make them to order.

Since I see myself as having many characteristics in common with hedgehogs (small, round and prickly), I thought this would be great for me. And as it happens, they also make one for the ladies. Yes, 'Half woman, half hedgehog'. If you fancy one, you can visit the [Australian] site HERE.

I suggested that we could sport matching titfers;* Julie, however, seemed to want a different cap made...

Famously so. I keep meaning to visit their shows; they're meant to be highly entertaining.

Visit the Ladyboys' site here.

* 'Titfer' = 'Tit for tat' = hat. Cockney rhyming slang, don'tyeknow.

Diggin' down on the farm

If Julie has a fault - unlikely, I know - it's that her mouth has a tendency to say something before the brain gets a chance to edit it.
Unfortunately, Julie's mouth doesn't have access to all the knowledge that her brain does, so it tends to tag things and respond accordingly, even when the situation doesn't completely conform to her brain's definitions.

Here's a prime example. We were out for a drive the other day, shunning the main roads as normal and pootling around the small lanes - dodging into gateways every now and then to allow oncoming traffic to pass. Not a lot of conversation was going on; what with the narrow lanes and tall hedges, I needed to be careful with my own driving, just in case someone coming the other way wasn't careful with theirs.

When it comes to this, Julie tends to drift and take only passing note of the scenery, near and far. When we passed (yet another) gate leading onto a field, we caught a fleeting glimpse of an animal with black and white colouring.

Actually, no. Not 'moo'. More like 'whinney' or 'neigh'.
Yep. It was a horse. However, Julie's mouth had done its party trick and made what it had thought to be the obvious connection. Unfortunately for Julie, I had also seen the beastie in question and had recognised its equine nature.
I laughed, and Julie knew immediately what had happened and switched the running of the mouth over to her brain, admitting that it was, indeed, a horse.

Sadly, Julie lost the chance to leave it there and almost literally dug herself deeper.

No. I don't think so.
They're yellow.

Tongue-twisting tea for two

A few days ago, me and Julie were out for a walk and went to The Plantation tea and coffee house in Eastbourne. One of the reasons I like going there is that it's usually a little less noisy than the normal places. Another is that it has that sort of semi-colonial vibe going, with wood and wicker furniture and decorations.
The main reason I like the place, though, is the range of tea varieties on offer.

As some our longer-term readers will recall, I am rather fond of a cup of brown joy. From the moment I get up, enjoying at least two cups of standard tea (often known as English Breakfast). Unlike the good Professor Elemental, however, I will also partake of a herbal infusion or two. Summer berries, chamomile, blueberry and apple (don't knock it; it's actually really rather nice) are all favourites. I'm even rather partial to white tea and green tea, although the latter, for me, needs to be tempered with another flavour - lemon's good.

Above all of those, my personal favourite is lapsang souchong.

It has a smoky aroma and flavour, but it's quite mild. If you have tried Earl Grey, then just imagine a halfway point between that and normal black tea. Mmmmmmm...

Julie, however, is not a fan. Give her 'normal' tea any day. In fact, it's not just the taste that turns her off. The smell is not particularly appealing to her either. Remember this Gem?

Ladies, gentlemen and hedgehogs, I'll let you into a little secret. Since I shared that little Gem with you all, we have discussed both it and the tea itself on numerous occasions. And you know what? I don't think Julie has once managed to pronounce the name correctly - nor has she managed to repeat any single version. Even when faced with 'Lobsang dipshit', poor Julie's brain reacts with 'bugger that' and throws out any old collection of syllables.

Like the other day. Since this little cafe has an especially nice blend of Lapsang Souchong, I generally go for that. I have tried others - the gunpowder green tea is flavoursome - but it's usually the Lobsa... er, Lapsang Souchong.*
When the waitress brought the teapots over, Julie was curious as to what I had ordered.

Heh. It reminds me of that famous tongue twister,

"The sixth sheik's sixth sheep's sick."

----------------------------------------------------

* Um. I have a confession to make. That point where I made a joke of typing the false name before switching to the real one? I wasn't faking it. At some point between my brain and my fingers, the message got garbled and I started typing 'Lobsang dipshit' as an automatic reflex... Oh well.

--------------------------------------------------------------

***NEWS***

I received an email yesterday from the organisers of World Book Night 2013 - apparently, my copies of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair have arrived and should be ready for me to collect. Expect a special post very soon!

Moooooo!

The body is a wonderful thing. Rather like the age-old comparison with the apparent grace of the swan, there is so much activity beneath the surface that it would be fair to describe the human body as a battleground, one that will only be calmed when one side it vanquished for good. Sorry, but you know which side that is. As the phrase goes,

"Life is a sexually-transmitted disease with a 100% fatality rate."

Cheering, eh?

Let's steer things back to lighter matters.
Everybody likes a fart gag, don't they? Gaseous emissions have been a staple of comedy since time immemorial, but it's as much about timing as anything else.
Imagine a hall full of students taking their final exams. Despite hours or revision and weeks of preparation, it's turning out to be far harder than any of them had imagined. Half an hour in, and already, despair is setting in. The tension in the air is palpable. Then, from between clenched buttocks comes a noise, a sound like a cornet being blown to a tone of E flat. There's silence at first, then a muffled snigger. Soon, the whole room is full of students trying not to make any noise and failing dismally. However, the mood has been lifted and who knows - some of the students may have relaxed enough to improve their score.

"What you see might not be real" is a sculpture by Chinese artist Chen
Wenling. It's an unsubtle dig at the financial crisis. The bull represents
Wall Street, and the human is Bernard Madoff. He was convicted
and jailed for 150 years for being a Ponzi schemer.

Alternatively, let's pretend you are watching a sitcom. The main character works in an office. He's been stuck in a meeting for what has felt like the longest hour of his life. He has spent most of the meeting regretting the full English breakfast. It was tasty enough at the time, but it's given him some terrible gas. Finally, the meeting is over. He grabs his papers and dashes out for his own office. When he gets there, he bangs the door shut behind him, but doesn't notice that it has bounced open again. He leans his knuckles on his desk and carefully relaxes certain muscles. The resulting fart is loud, sonorous and meaty enough to be put into pies. Them, just as he sighs with relief, he hears the boss behind him, "I hope you feel much better for that." Oh bugger.

See? It can be humorous. Obviously, it can be taken too far. An entire programme of fart gags is a bit much (although Bottom seemed to get away with something very close to it for several series).

On the other hand, when you feel the need and you happen to be in public, it's really not done to simply let rip. In that case, one will surreptitiously glance about, making sure that the coast is clear. Only then will we allow ourselves to let something out. Hopefully, it will be as discreet as your attempt to clear the area.
Yeah, right.
Poor Julie, on this occasion, managed to create a passable impression of a foghorn. I was gasping for breath, I was laughing that hard, and Julie was laughing just as hard. Then, just as I felt I was beginning to calm down, Julie decided to justify herself.

And I was off again...

How to assign gender roles. Or not.

It's nice to sing along to songs, isn't it? Especially when you're in the car and a nice, catchy tune comes on the radio. Maybe the radio isn't even on and a song has just popped into your head apropos of nothing. I usually like it when that happens, because it's more often than not a decent tune. Only rarely do I suddenly have in mind a real stinker (the last time, it was a Peter Andre tune.. *shudder*)

Of course, if Julie happens to be along for the ride, then that 'apropos of nothing' tends to have a certain extra, random element...

...of course he did...

I was going to post the original song, but I wanted something a little different. Not the Suggs cover, much as I like him. Then I found this one by a ragtag bunch going by the name of The Local Natives.

For more music visit The Local Natives Youtube page.

Stop! Grammar time! - featuring Igor Stravinsky

So, Trivial Pursuit. You get asked a question, you answer it. If you get it right, you get another go. If you're in the right place, you also get a token to place into your playing piece - 'getting another wedge for your cheese', as we often say.
And that's it.
In theory.
In practice, there will be lots of banter, cries of 'how am I supposed to know that?' and accusations of skulduggery. There will also, if Julie is playing, be random observations on the question, the answer, a different question or answer, or anything that happens to be on her mind at that particular time. And when I say 'random', you know I mean 'random'.

I suppose we ought to be grateful Julie didn't burst into song with 'Old MacDonald had a farm'...

Satan, rocks, and an x-rayted song.

Last week, Julie found she had somehow hurt her back, just below her neck. Don't be worried - all she has done is somehow pulled a muscle. However, on top of her little accident at work (see Monday's post), this comes as especially unwelcome timing. The pain turned out to be a tad worse than that in her foot, so she has been forced to speak to her doctor again, with the result that she has been prescribed painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
I know the pain must be rather nasty, because Julie is actually fine with taking the tablets (as far as having to take medication goes). That said, Julie is trying to limit the amount she takes. Not because she is concerned about becoming hooked on them, but because of the side-effects. It's a legitimate concern. especially so in the light of her weight-loss surgery. Because of the reduced stomach size, Julie is now both more and less reactive to the chemicals in the meds, so while some tablets seem to have lost their effectiveness, others will turn out to be more of a problem.
So it is with co-codamol (a mix of codeine and paracetamol). I'm not going to go into details. They're not icky; you just don't need to know them. Suffice it to say that Julie finds she has to work out if she's more concerned about the pain or the side-effects at any one point before taking and co-codamol. Or, as Julie put it,

A little note for the folks who may have got the wrong end of the stick here; hardcore - in this case - does not refer to 'action', but to the rubble that is used in construction. Although I'll freely admit that, when I first saw a sign advertising 'Free hardcore', I not only got the wrong end of the stick, I got the wrong stick altogether.
Ah, youth.

What with Julie's foot and her back and my ongoing headache issues (and occasional back troubles), a lot of our conversations turn to health matters. Usually, we'll lament our lot, and then follow it up by saying that there are many far worse off than we are... although that doesn't make it any better.
Julie said it best.

And on that note, we shall bid you fare-thee-well and have a great weekend!

Venus in Blurred Jeans and other shenanigans

They say a week is a long time in politics. It's also a long time in science, weather, blogging and - more to the point - it's a long time for Julie to remember things that people may have said.

A week ago, the orbit of the planet Venus happened to pass between us and the sun, resulting in some first class pictures and a lot of scientific data. A little closer to home, where Jubilee mania was well and truly in full swing, the transit of Venus resulted in confusion and a somewhat baffling Gem, courtesy of one of my colleagues. This was posted on Friday. On the following day, Julie and myself were sat in the living room, and I asked if she had read the Gem yet. As it happened, she had, but - touching upon an earlier conversation we'd had - wanted to make a point about it. I was completely unprepared for the resulting conversation.

In other words, you have been warned.
Now read on.

I was absolutely speechless. Just when it seemed Julie couldn't up the 'Odd' ante any more, there she went.
Epic. Truly epic.

Almost Gems, but most definitely a put-down.

Hello, and welcome to a week of Scrabble-themed Gems, a week in which I prove that we can be both as bad as each other in so many ways. We both cheat, for example. Mind you, when I say 'cheat', what we actually do is look at the letters we have on our racks and try and come up with a possible combination. In this manner, we hope to happen upon a word that is not in our vocabularies, but is most definitely contained in the Scrabble word book.

For us - and my folks - it's the ultimate arbiter and referee. If it's in there, it stays on the board. This gives rise to a common exchange, following a placement of a bizarre word.

"Qibla?? What's that?"
"It's in the book, that's what it is."
"...right."

The thing is, though, there will be times when those seven tiles on your rack give you absolutely no inspiration at all. Granted, a lot of the time, it'll be something like 'AAGHUUU' or the teeth and tongue-rending "BDDFQVX'. However, I find I can wind up with a sweet-looking set of letters - and maybe even one of the blanks - and.. and... Crud. How is it I can't make anything larger than three letters long...? Or, to put it another way...

I hope you know what I mean. Julie does, but she's hardly sympathetic. Or coherent.

I know, I know. It all makes sense, doesn't it? It's just that when you first look at it or hear it you can't process it, can it? Oh... it can. I guess it's just me then...
Sigh...

Double-up Monday (pt.1); Potty problems or just plain potty?

You know how it is - you go out for the day, or even just for a walk. All of a sudden, you're gripped by a certain need. You brave it out, knowing it's not that long before you get back home. Unfortunately, home always seems to be just that little bit further away than you remember and by the time you do get back, 'uncomfortable' doesn't even begin to describe how you're feeling.

Imagine, then, that you fumble with a suddenly sentient key and stumble through the door. You know where you need to go, and nothing had better get in your way.
Imagine, too, that your significant other helps you along with these words of wisdom;

Do you have any idea just how difficult it is to pee standing up while you're shaking with laughter? Erratic isn't the half of it.

Stick around folks, there's another post to come today, 'Random acts of grammar'.

Mental mashups

Every now and then, especially if we're trying to while away the time on a journey, Julie and myself will play alpha-categories. You probably know of it already, in some form or another. Essentially, you pick a category and then take turns in coming up with something in that category beginning with each successive letter until you reach 'Z' and - if you so wish - begin again.

We were in a cafe recently, waiting for our food to come. As it was busy, it was taking some time, so I kicked off a round of alpha-categories with the ultra-simple category of musical bands or artists. We're pretty hot on this topic, so the game rattled along quite well.. until the later stages, that is...

Don't you love the way Julie thought I was simply carrying on with the game?*

As it turned out, Julie was somehow getting mixed up with The Lambrettas and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Since the former were a mod band with a strong hint of Northern Soul running through them, we thought that The Vambrettas would be a particularly good mashup.
It's a pity, then, that I can't find one. However, have a couple of clips on me.
The first is The Lambrettas. More famous for their cover of The Coaster's hit 'Poison Ivy', here's something I actually think is better.

And for a finale, here's a true Mashup, featuring Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, mixing it good with Peter Gabriel...

*This reminds me of an incident from my college years. I believe I may have to recount it and embarrass someone...