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We all know that when the wind is howling & the rain lashes down the kids get bored within seconds & there’s never anything good to distract them on TV, when this happens you need a new game to make the day fly by & loft fishing is a great start. We all throw stuff into the loft, it’s always stuff that we’re never going to use again but think that we might, aside from the Christmas decorations though we never do, what makes it interesting though is that we’re not alone in this. Over the years houses have many occupants & upon the day of their departure they look into the loft & despair, then they collect the Xmas tree & the baubles & set off for pastures new leaving the detritus of years behind them. After this someone else moves in & unless they ambitiously decide to convert the loft to another bedroom they simply continue to hurl things into it until either they leave or else the ceiling comes down. (continue reading…)

I mean without a plane obviously, or a helicopter or balloon or hang-glider etc, we’ve been trying for a few years now & with all the progress we’ve made everywhere else we ought to have produced at least one superhero by now. I thought most of them were created by weird accidents or pollution anyway? This is clearly rubbish since we’ve had no end of accidents & have patiently polluted the earth from one end to the others, we should have supermen flocking like starlings but have we? No, we haven’t even got the stretchy ones that have to walk everywhere but can still do some good stuff, we haven’t even got any psychic ones, it’s a disaster. Evolution may be a force of nature but aside from getting a bit taller & better at pushing buttons the human race isn’t exactly motoring along, I don’t mean to come over as expecting a freak show of epic proportions but we should have something. I’m not talking Superman, he was an alien & nothing to do with humanity as well as being fictional but we could have a webbed wonder or an invisible man or just one flying silly bugger! (continue reading…)

It was a wet & cold Spring morning in Spangly Woods, the rain had only just stopped as Bryan the badger stuck his head outside for a breath of fresh air before bedtime. A small stone bounced off his head, ” Ouch! ” said Bryan hastily pulling his head back inside his sett, it was a good job he did too as several more stones proceeded to clatter down in front of him. ” What’s going on here? ” he shouted, at first there was no answer at all, just some faint sounds of movement, then someone started shouting, ” You’re not having them do you hear? You’re not bloody having them! “, there was a flurry of wings & then silence. Bryan shrugged before carefully easing himself out into his glade for a look around, it was now utterly peaceful with only the sound of rain dripping from the trees to disturb the quiet, it didn’t matter though, the day was somewhat spoilt now for Bryan, he’d best get a good days’ rest he thought as whatever was going on today in Spangly Woods would surely involve him again at some point. A little further away from Bryans’ ruined morning Matty & Monty the stoats were watching a frog & trying to decide whether they felt quick enough to catch it, Monty had just decided to chance his arm & was preparing to leap when a veritable storm of pebbles came down & crushed him to death. Matty looked down at Montys’ lifeless form & then up at the sky, birds could be right bastards he thought to himself before tucking into Monty, ” It must be my lucky day ” thought the frog hopping away like mad. (continue reading…)

I’m not going to mess about here, this isn’t a post that pretends to explain whether Fridays are evil, they are & that’s all there is to it, the only real question is whether they’re evil by design or intent? I mean Fridays do seem to set out to destroy us, oh they’re great at first, when you’re sat at school first thing Monday morning the coming Friday looks like a beacon of hope in an otherwise bloody bleak world. It shines with the promise of fun & freedom where you can escape the pressures of life & just let it all go. It’s still keeping its’ glorious glow long after our school days are over, it’s still the end of the week after all but now we’re allowed out later at night & after a heavy week drudging the boards for pennies Friday & the bright lights beckon cheerfully. There’s hope attached to Friday that Monday just can’t carry off, yes Saturday always gets top billing but deep down we all know that Friday is king of the hill & that Wednesday is boring, Tuesday’s hardly a day at all & who cares about Thursday? The only reason anyone gets worked up over Thursday is because it’s Friday the day after, & so it goes on, the years pass & we’re lulled into thinking that Fridays are our friend, it’s not though, Friday is out to get all of us. (continue reading…)

There are a few things that get a bad press time & time again but drinking is by & far the winner, there’s hardly anyone in the newspaper or magazine business that wants to do anything except explore the dark side of drink. Okay so it causes untold misery to millions & is responsible for countless accidents & early deaths but aside from that is it really all that bad? The statistics seem to be painting a fairly grim picture of cause & effect & there does appear to be some circumstantial link between consuming large volumes of alcohol & bad things happening but is drink to blame? Even if it is are we only examining the evidence from one side? Hasn’t our addiction for intoxicating beverages brought us anything worthwhile at all or have we been fooling ourselves all along? Could drinking or not drinking make a difference to our lives? Well, if you’re about to fly a plane or perform an operation then nipping out for a few pints is probably not a great idea, then again if you’re a referee you might as well, it might help a bit & you’d resent the booing less. (continue reading…)

It’s funny but we all make the same mistake, all of us not knowing that the rest of us have already made it or are just about to make it, it’s just one of those things that we all have to get through somehow & that some of us will spend our lives repeating. It’s lasagne of course, I’m sure you’d all mostly guessed anyway but if you didn’t don’t worry, you will, it’s impossible not to make mistakes when it comes to lasagne from the moment of discovery to the last bite you’ll ever have. None of us will ever forget lasagne & yet we’ll all have the stories that chill the blood as we remember the other times, the lasagne that just didn’t work out, even the ones that we did our best with & desperately hoped that we’d found the ultimate lasagne. In the end though it’s not just about the pasta or how well the white sauce was stirred or what kind of cheese was or wasn’t required or even what dish it was served in or what with, there are some things you can’t spoil & some that are built spoilt, that’s lasagne for you. (continue reading…)

Ask any parent these days & they’ll tell you that they see a lot more childrens’ TV than they’d like to, across a plethora of channels there seems no end to the animated antics or contrived sit-coms. Along with each stream of adverts & the occasional episode of something that no-one’s seen there is always someone there, someone to link the shows & make it all chummy & inviting, & they’re all nuts. I mean nuts as well, no-one is really that cheerful that early & then cheerful all the way through the day as well, having to continually spout out banal nonsense & pretend that any of it actually matters would drive anyone normal into a fit of ranting & four letter expletives. Not these men & women though, they’re always there, ever ready to engage with what they appear to perceive as a mass of uninformed stupidity who sit mesmerized in front of TVs up & down the nation. No matter how trivial the programmes or lame the repeats they sing their praises as if they offer rare jewels to kings, I can see how a continuous diet of watching the parade of awfulness could drive them all nuts but that’s just it, they start as nuts. (continue reading…)

With confidence coming off him in waves & the polls screaming out his name it’s all going well for Nick Clegg, he may or may not be big in power this year but win or not we all have to stop calling him the invisible man. He’s not however probably going to sweep into power later this week & so will have more free time than whoever does win, should we really waste this resource on just politics? It’s not as if the Lib-Dems have any important policies to pursue anyway, so long as they get a few more MPs they’ll be happy to bask in the shade & chase minor celebs & stray boys across the parks of England. Since this is the case why don’t we draft him into the England squad as a wildcard entry? Then, when a match is tight & we need a real impact substitution he’ll be there waiting for us, ready to lead a no hope team to sudden & dramatic success seemingly from nothing, with no Beckham to do the job it could be that Cleggs’ time has come. (continue reading…)

The sexes have battled for generation after generation & although it’s been constantly proven at least to the satisfaction of the womenfolk that it’s all mans’ fault we too need someone to blame. I’m going out on a limb here & putting early man up there as a prime suspect, after all it’s obviously been ingrained for a while so it must have kicked in fairly soon after we stood up, there must have been a reason for it as well & I think I’ve found it, it was evolution. Let’s consider the facts, early man was subjected to many trials as he wended his way slowly towards the present days, back then a tough day at the office really meant something & he was probably lucky to make it back to the cave at all some days, it wasn’t a lifestyle conducive to the

Although a long way from progress Early Man was well aware of Mondays

proper regard for his partner. There was probably some resentment involved as well, if the women had to dig up roots & crack on with some general foraging & the men had go out & attempt to top a mammoth with a stick they could have seen themselves as the major player in the relationship although they could have stuck to rabbits & got over this. Even today men aren’t best pleased to listen to their spouses’ critical approach to their latest not quite successful endeavour, it can’t have been any easier for those who’ve just gone one & one with a sabre-toothed tiger, this doesn’t make it wrong for the women to complain, it just means though, that they were as much at fault as the blokes. (continue reading…)

It had been a bitterly cold night & Bryan was heading for home wishing fervently that he’d never bothered going out in the first place,for all that Spring was around the corner it seemed like a bloody long & awkward corner, he’d tried searching for company but everyone was showing more sense than him & along with the food supply was huddled indoors. It wasn’t hunger that had forced Bryan out anyway, it was boredom, he was bored with the cold, bored with being on his own & bored from eating too many roots & not enough mouse, he wasn’t yet bored with the TV but if he saw any more Attenborough it was 50/50 as to whether his arm or worse would fall off. He came to a small glade & decided to rest for a moment, the cold was tiring him out & he’d long got over the novelty of watching his breath mist float amongst the trees, he’d be glad to see his bed today for sure, after a moment Bryan became aware that the glade was odd. It wasn’t immediately apparent but once he’d noticed it he couldn’t let it go, he looked about, he could smell a mouse roasting & at the very edge of hearing was the sound of the weasels cheering on a hapless victim, nothing new there, then he saw it, green grass underfoot & in an almost perfect circle within the glade. He shook his head & then looked again, the grass was still there, everywhere else was still gripped in frost yet here it was definitely warmer, as he studied the ground closer it began to shudder slightly, the soil crumbled & right in front of Bryan a small hole appeared followed by a moles’ head, ” Wotcha Bryan ” said Bob mole, ” not pleasured yourself to death yet then? ” (continue reading…)