Israel blown apart

No, not that Israel.

I had a very nice holiday in Eilat once. Jolly hot in the evening but snorkelling in the Red Sea with all the lovely fish was worth it. Took a nice couple of trips up to Cairo...fun border crossing....and Bethlehem to see the birth place of the baby Jesus. No. Not that Israel.

Israel Folau. Probably a jolly nice chap for a convict but sadly he stood between George North and the try line. Did he not see George's Lions best ever try the week before?

Did he not see several hundred weight of raw meat heading in his direction?

For the young lad to have the ball, run forward, pick Israel up and keep on going was a fantastic sight for all those in red.

Sadly the Lions fell short in the second test but it's nice to know that we Brits have a sense of humour.

 

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....an interview with Education Secretary Michael Gove.

We are fortunate today to have the Secretary for Education Michael Gove with us. e will be answering some of your questions.......I'm sorry, but Mr. Gove has a throat infection and so can only be photographed responding to questions set by the studio audience.

Michael what was your school days like and were you ever bullied?

Well you are right there...speccys and gingers do come in for some stick. Michael, have you ever considered writing a novel like Alan Clarke and if so what would your sleeve photo look like?

I agree, very John Grisham. An unusual request here but how long can you hold our breath for?

I agree, seventeen seconds is probably a new world record. This is not a question, but with all that breath holding....did you just fart?

Good. Back to the questions. John from Wrexham wants to know if you have claws like a chicken?

I'm glad we've got that sorted out. Wendy from Stroud wants to know if you can dislodge your bottom jaw like Gordon Brown or a snake?

Thanks for that. Chris from Hatfield thinks that you are possessed by the devil. Any comments?

 

I'm glad we've cleared that up. Susan from Slough has heard that you do a good Mandelson impersonation, any chance we could see it?

I say, just like the Dark Lord himself there. Steven from Birmingham thinks you are mad and hear voices in your head!

So no voices at all then. Piers from Los Angeles would like to know if you could comment on his news story tomorrow that you are having an affair with a large invisible woman!

Thank you for your answers Minister. One final one. Britney from class 3B wants to know exactly what you know about education.

Thank you minister

 

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Excuse me Mr. Jagger...

June 28, 2013 (LONDON) -- Mick Jagger thinks his original career plan to become a school teacher might have provided plenty of satisfaction.

The Rolling Stones frontman told BBC Radio Friday that his music career has not been challenging intellectually and that teaching might have been "gratifying" instead. He also said he had considered becoming a politician or a journalist when he was a teen.

Instead he has become one of the most successful rock singers in history.

Despite his interest in other careers, Jagger says he's "very pleased" with how things have turned out.

I can just imagine Mr. Jagger teaching a bottom set Year 11.

"Today children we are going to look at poetry in the form of music lyrics."

"You mean like how Brown Sugar is about you shagging some coloured bird!"

"The phrase is ethnic minority Jenkinson please!"

"...and how about Satisfaction is all about how you can't get none 'cos your dick is so small."

"I do not have a small dick...."

"Yeah, that's what Miss Hall in Drama and Miss Faithful in P.E. say"

"What's that smell, Tompkins, are you smoking? It stinks."

" it's medicinal sir, I got it from the Head of Technology Mr. Richards!"

 

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If David Cameron was a school teacher.

Imagine "our Dave" with his public school education let loose on a secondary comprehensive.

Cameron on Mathematics:- "there's seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenteen.........

Cameron on History:- "...and then Norman the conq came To Hastings and shot his load In to Harold's eye......"

Cameron on Drama:- "...forget Shakespeare...personally I think you can't get a better actor than Beaker from the muppet show.

Cameron on Home Economics:- ....now we take this little chap and we can either drop him straight into the pan of boiling water or the blender.....yummy"

 

Cameron on P.E. ...."kids today need to toughen up. Less of this namby pamby soccer.....I have always believed that Kung Fu should be taught....."

Cameron at parents evening:- ..." Oh yes Mrs Tomkinson, I think we need to work together to look after Tommy as your separation takes place."

Cameron on failing standards:- ..." bovvered? Do I look bothered?"

Cameron on Bobby Birss as a teacher:- " He can just go F......."

 

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...take it as Gospel!

The garden has never looked fuller and it seems that everyone is having a good time. 2 hours of Gospel music plus a picnic under a nice sun was not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon

By the sounds of it the picnic is about to continue with loads of people I don't know so I'll head indoors knowing that I have solitude, peace and I would like to say quiet.....but the noise sorts straight up from the revellers in the garden straight through my bedroom window.

I am assuming that with the suggestion of the M/C that having to thanked Sheena for letting the choir use the garden, that this was the first of an annual thing.

 

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........at least the marquee is up.

It is Saturday morning and the day that the gospel choir concert is going on in the back garden. In bed, having a warm snuggle followed by being served a warm bacon sandwich....'Er indoors goes "So you'll be cutting the grass before you start then?"

A leading question and one to which the only answer is "Yes dear, I was just getting up to do that now" ....even though there was no chance of it happening.

So what does a boy do. Cut the grass do a quick tidy up and off you go.

A squad of enthusiastic hands turned up at 9am and soon got the marquee up.

 

......and the sun has come out.

Just to be annoying...I'll let out my chickens...don't see why they should be cooped up in a garden full of people and sound.

Wonder if there are any bacon but ties left?

 

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.....Typhoid Mary. A brief history.

Just read this article in the Daily Mail. Have heard and used the phrase Typhoid Mary but knew nothing about the background.  Love the work that the photographer has done to portray the decaying buildings that were to house Mary Mallon to try to quarantine a healthy carrier of the typhoid virus.

View 

Mary Mallon, known as Typhoid Mary, seemed to be a healthy young woman when a health inspector knocked on her door in 1907, yet she was the cause of several typhoid outbreaks in New York City.

Mary was the first 'healthy carrier' of typhoid fever in the United States.

It all began in the summer of 1906, when New York banker Charles Henry Warren took his family on vacation.

The Warrens hired Marry Mallon to be their cook. Soon afterwards, one of the Warren's daughters became ill with typhoid fever.

Then, Mrs Warren and two maids became ill; followed by the gardener and another of the Warrens' daughter's.

In total, six of the eleven people in the house came down with typhoid.
Mary could not understand how someone who was not sick could spread the disease, so she went on the run.

Eventually she was captured and forced to live in isolation upon North Brother Island, a particularly treacherous stretch in New York's East River.

Mary Mallon was taken by force and against her will and was held without a trial. She had not broken any laws, yet the government locked her up in isolation indefinitely.

Riverside Hospital, was the name of the facility on the island where she was kept. It treated everything from smallpox and leprosy to venereal disease and heroin addiction.

The island has been abandoned since 1963, but more than a dozen buildings remain, in various states of disrepair.

Typhoid Mary was presumed to have infected some 51 people, three of whom died, over the course of her career as a cook.

She died after a total of nearly three decades in isolation.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2349350/Banished-New-York-30-years-The-eerie-photos-North-Brother-Island-East-River--Typhoid-Mary-forced-live-isolation-nations-healthy-carrier-disease.html#ixzz2XYPranKy 

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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2349350/Banished-New-York-30-years-The-eerie-photos-North-Brother-Island-East-River--Typhoid-Mary-forced-live-isolation-nations-healthy-carrier-disease.html#ixzz2XYPA0Mav 

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

....now for a weekend of sporting heaven.

There's no football. Well except for the confederations cup final which will have to do. Think of Juan Mata, the diminutive Chelsea dynamo. having played his first season for Chelsea where he won player of then year, he played in the European Championships with Spain, then the Olympics with Spain and then straight into a 68 game season with Chelsea culminating with a
Uefa cup win and now he is in the Confederations cup final......all before  Chelsea's pre season tour of the Far East and the start of the Premiership on August 17th....at home to Hull but not that I'm counting the days.
Now it's time for the British Lions to roar and put the convicts back in their place and put Australia back in its place...I mean they are in so much disarray they got rid of their P.M.
What Britain really needs is a moment of magic from Andy Murray. Victory today for Andy and Laura Robson on centre court is just the thing to make you forget about the rain. If Laura wins and makes it into the second week....when was the last time that happened....Sue Barker?
An Andy Murray victory would be enough to a smile on everyone's face, put the double dip recession and austerity measures to the back of your mind (when was the last time any one normal used austerity in a sentence?)
The public would be able to plough through another summer of discontent as the rains come down and the floods cause even more damage. We could handle the fact that all the good TV has gone for the summer break, that Glastonbury is less of  a music festival and more of an opportunity of celebrity types to pose in designer Wellies even though they have never done any actual work in a pair.
That's what sporting success does. It makes those of us who find it difficult to get up from the couch to reach for another crisp and beer on the coffee table, feel that we could achieve greatness....or maybe once have achieved greatness when our waistline was smaller than our inside leg measurement.
I do love the fact that overweight people spend most of their time in baggy track suit bottoms and trainers........but obviously have no idea exactly what they are supposed to be used for. Ah, irony.

Bring it on.

So THAT's where all the sluts are!

Just reading the article in the paper about the "Instagram Slut Shaming" riots in Gothenburg.
The fact that school kids set up their own website to shame alleged promiscuous classmates caused a riot at sentencing is interesting.
I thought that their business or economics teachers might be looking to award them a "young Enterprise" award.

I live in Essex.

To be perfectly honest, there are many girls from this area who are concerned that they never made the list as they thought that their reputations had made it onto the continent.

With a simple keystroke or two and a photograph to back it up, you can character assassinate anyone. It is good to see that something is being done to prevent this. It won't stop others from being as stupid.
In the bad old days you would just shout "slut" loudly as they passed. Now you can put it in bold letters and a large font on the Internet and add 101 other insults and in that you.

Whilst most people are incensed by the idea of a "slut directory" others will be thinking about how it is a good idea and will be off to start their own....."cos that's Sweden and nobody's gonna tell us off over here are they?"

I can see  a few names and faces passing across your mind as you read this.
Her....yes.
Mutton dressed as lamb....yes
Recently divorced and drinks a bit....yes!
Tried to chat you up at the office party..........hell yes!

...just don't press send!

NOT singing in the rain......

Never one to do things by half, my charming wife has organised a Gospel Choir Concert for our back garden on Saturday for about 100 people.
Not a small band of acoustic guitarists sitting round the campfire. Not a quiet impromptu sing along in the garden which has happened in the past. Not a small select few but 100 people in the back garden.

My back garden!

The back garden that my kidney stone has prevented me from fully giving it the T.L.C. that it truely needs. I'm at the do a bit of work and stop when the tummy hurts and the rapid desire to wee blood makes me go to bed.
I'm hoping since its gospel and thus praising all things that God will look down and think "I'd better keep the rain off them since they are singing my praise....I'll send the storm clouds down to the bouncy castle at the end of the street.
Then there may a barbecue....apparently and a small fire may be lit in the corner.....normally to get rid of midges in the evening.
As a proud man, I am disappointed that my garden is not going to be in pristine condition. The garden. My refuge from family and work. A place hopefully filled with sunshine and chickens.
I did like my wife's comment that they weren't announcing the ensue on the Internet.
Why?
Are they afraid that the Dunmow massive or the Stortford posse would come round in their ford Ka's and trash the joint? It's a Gospel concert........neither of our parents are here to supervise but I think it's going to be OK.
"Hey Jason, I was going cruising wif me bird for a bit and then going round to Gay Daves flat to get wasted but do you fancy going down Takeley for a bit of Happy Clappy 'cos that Amazin' Grace always gets me 'ere"
I may have the local Fuzz on speed dial

NON sexy pillow talk.

Cushions!

Is there anything less manly than cushions? Guys, when was the last time that you had cushions on your To Do list?

Women love cushions. They can't get enough of them. A bit like shoes and handbags, the words multitude and plethora can be used in conjunction with them.

My wife has cushions on the sofa. OK. But why do they have to be three thick? Why are some of the cushions "good" cushions that you can't  actually rest on? I thought that additional suppor was the only role of a cushion.

Why do we need cushions on beds? Why? What purpose do they actually serve? When you go to bed....you have to take them off.....when you get out of bed....you have to put them back on again.

This morning, Sheena made the bed around me and actually set the pillows in position in the middle as I lay there.

I shall be shortly reporting on an unfortunate accident. Who gave the cat petrol and a lighter near the cushions, no one will ever know....

China! Censorship gone mad.

How can any country claim to be a world leader  when they try to censor cartoons and keep them from the people?
Freedom of speech and expression! That's what makes us Great Britain. Islamic fundamentalists, neo Nazis, the BNP and others have freedom to live amongst us express their views and beliefs as long as they do not infringe the laws that we have or threaten violence towards us.
Then we reserve the right to send you out of our country, the country that you hate so much, You hate it so much that you get expensive lawyers to demand the right to stay in the country who's views you despise.
Hitler had it all wrong. Rather than plan an invasion of England, he should just have got a pre easy jet flight over here and moaned and complained about how Jews, by existing were infringing his civil rights and we could have stopped the Second World War. Give him a soap box in Hyde Park and a slot on the Jeremy Kyle show and he would have been fine.

I loved the fact that after Obama's recent visit to China, that the Chinese interweb Gestapo were trying to ban access to some of the cartoons on the Internet at the time.

How can you not love the comparison between world leaders and Winnie the Pooh? By exchanging the tanks for rubber ducks, does that not show the ability to laugh at yourself, an attribute that we British have in abundance.

Nowadays, within minutes of a world tragedy, black humour appears all over the Internet, on tweets and face to face in pubs and the playground. It may not be sensitive or politically correct but we do it.
Hell!, that was how our forefathers survived the Blitz. "The Dunkirk spirit" and all that.

China - get a life. Try laughing.......you might just like it.

Pride comes before a fall......

I was very proud of my daughter Gabi this week who, after three years of study has been awarded a 2.1 in Creative writing. (Although as we are reliably informed, the Yoof of today call it an upper second - is this a posh thing?)

Students have to go through many hardships, most of them financial but having to live in Huddersfield, I think qualifies.

All those years hunched over her laptop until breakfast, playing online games with other weirdos have been replaced with being hunched over her laptop until at least the early hours compiling her book of poetry is a pleasing sight.

She had to go to bed as she had a job in the morning ............ her "barista" job to go to.

Sadly, like most young people today, her employer decided to un-employ her with a bunch of non specific and trivial reasons.

It was a shame as she had been coming home so happy and has been making plans for the summer.


It is sadly the way of life that employers, like relationships in their early stages can mean that you get dumped for no reason when you think that things are going well.

Sadly, ces't la vie!

......and then she opened the letter saying you have two weeks jury service!!!!

It nearly worked for the Nazis.....

In Germany during the Second World War, the Germans tried to "airbrush" the Jews and other groups out of history.
Up on the Tyne, at St. James Park if we can call it that, Joe Kinnear's is attempting to "airbrush" himself in to Geodie folklore.

To go on national radio and make claims about what you did when you were last at the club may seem a little Like "Jose" ........unfortunately most of Joes claims were factually incorrect.
In some cases he has gilded the Lily...like saying that he has managed all over the world (UK and Nepal don't automatically allow for the word ALL to be used.
In other cases he is factually incorrect.....like signing Tim Krull, the keeper whilst he was there before...er no....Graham Souness signed him two years before ou got there.

...and in some cases down right lying.....like saying he had won manager of the month three times.....when he had in fact won it only once.

I know he will be able to count on the support of the players such as Hossem Ben AFRO and Johan KEBAB.......well he will onc the claims from the race relations board have been dealt with.
Joe would appreciate it if journalists would stop persecuting him as he was the only Brittish manager to win the Champions league for five consecutive years......

Hw can always count on the support of the loyal Geordie fans.........well not really now that he has said  that they ar not as clever as he is.

I don't think he has managed to upset the kit man and the tea lady....but you can't be perfect.....don't worry hough....Joe has got them on his "to do" list!

Another Kardashian Instagram moment.

Kim and Kanye have given birth to a baby. I wonder if they took any pictures?

Who am I kidding.  The poor kid will be one of the most filmed babies in the known universe. "Mum can i watch my baby videos?"
The little lamb will have half a dozen cameras on it at all times and so take longer to watch the footage than to actually have a real life.

How will it ever grow up to have a normal life? With mum worth billions for having the unique skill of existing in celebrity land and dad worth a bob or two, it will want for nothing.
Michael Jackson.....enough said. Justin Bieber....just getting a little bit weird

Do you think that young Kardashian will have an allowance....£5 pocket money a week....or a second.

Rich kids....doesn't even bear thinking about.

What do they have to aspire to?

Having socks with your daughter.

That was socks not sex!
Socks!
In our house we have had the age old argument of where do the missing socks go. Once they come out of that packet all new and pristine, get worn and go into the laundry basket then it becomes a lottery as to where they go and who gets them back. Most of the non sports socks in our house were black so who knows who should get them. Prudence says that I put them into my wife's pile and then let her sort things out from there.
I made the decision to invest in BLUE socks so that they would always find their way back to me and there would be no confusion. I bought them many years ago from Peacocks........sorry I am welling up and tears are forming since the store is no longer. The fact that a considerable amount of my wardrobe came from the store. My winter overcoat with a purple lining that I still wear cost £20. The socks were £3 for a pack of three....but there was a sale and I got them for half price.  50p for a pair of socks so I ended up with about 50 pairs, I put half in my drawer and the other half away.
Sadly the first wave have now gone to the big sock shop in the sky and I unleashed the fresh second wave into the world.
I hate getting a single pair of socks. You put them on and enjoy that first wear and then live in fear because you know that once they go into that laundry basket.....they may never come back....or at least one of them may not.
You get one and you put it in the orphan sock pile in the corner of your sock drawer hoping that one day it's twin will return, knowing that it will never happen.
When you have the spring clear out, you put your lonely sock into the bin and then ALWAYS the following week someone returns the other one to you as they had it in their lonely sock pile and realised that it wasn't theirs so two innocent socks bite the big one.
Now I have children and there are different problems as clothes tend to get borrowed.
Bethany will borrow my scarfs, hats, gloves and will occasionally put on one of my big jumpers if I make the mistake of putting it down. Either that or a cat will sit on it......go back to previous blog  re comments about smell!!!
Now Gabi is a stealer of socks. I become very enthusiastic when it comes to doing laundry as I try to stop any clothes interception in the bud.
I got to Thursday last week and found that I had only one pair of socks at he back of the drawer to make it into school on Friday. I now have a master plan. I will keep my collection of moths in the drawer as Gabi has a gear of moths and so would never open the drawer! Ha brilliant!
What did you say about moths and socks?

Isn't that mustard gas?

"Do you promise to love him for richer and poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health?"
"I do!"
Ah those halcyon days of wine and roses......well roses anyway.
Apparently the wine may now be one of the things causing problems.
With age and presumably a variety of different bacteria that can manage to turn everything that one loves to eat into something smelly.
I smell. Apparently! My wife has never mentioned it, never commented upon it and never made a song and dance about it.
Well not if you include running to open a window or

Michael Gove is a d*ck!

It's like watching the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.

"Off with his head" has been replaced by "let's change the Education system .....again."
Grades are increasing again....(glad that they announced this the day after the GCSE maths non calculator exam) how do they know?

Maybe it's because we teachers have got better at what we do even though you continually move the goalposts, why do you not recognise the effort that teachers, parents and pupils put in?

The Government have murdered the education system with their stupid ideas. "Let's make the exams harder so that our education system can compete with the rest of the world?"
Compete?....Britain can't even win Britain's got talent!
You mean lets stuff the kids who struggle just to get a basic C and reach their target and give them problems that they can't solve. The top kids will still be the top kids but the middle of the road kids will still be middle of the road but will fail in the eyes of employers.

Government....how's that English Bacalaureat thing going for you?

Government ministers, who's rich parents paid for them to go to private schools where failing to get an A* meant a career overseas where you couldn't embarrass your family. There is a rumour that a child at Eton once got a grade B ....but we have been unable to prove this.

Apparently in maths we now need to teach advanced algebra, statistics and ratio.....you mean topics that are part of the syllabus already...my god....why did nobody tell me? I spent all my time sitting in groups, having discussions, with peer assessment and pre OFSTED observations and changing my displays on a weekly basis, that I forgot to teach the syllabus. How silly of me!

"Let's gave grades numbers rather than letters!"......master stroke........
How did renaming Windscale/Sellafield nuclear power station go for you?

Mind you there must be something in the improving grades in mathematics.....hopefully all the new MP's won't get caught putting in fraudulent expenses claims as their numbers will actually add up for once!

I'll' see your hairy legs......and raise you my smelly bottom.

Women!

Not the entire species, just the ones that live in my house. (It may be all women but since my experience is limited to these three I'd better be specific.) My razor. My MACH 3 razor, much loved and travelled. I failed to move forward with razors. After the twin blade and the MACH 3, I failed to make the leap to the quatro, the five blade or the rotating lawn mower or the next generation laser blasts your hairs BEFORE they pop through the skin.
It lives happily in the upstairs bathroom.  Well it did, until I found that had started to move on it's own. Only trouble was, IT WAS USED. A man would never think of using another mans razor. So why do my girls thing that it is ok to shave their legs (yuk) or arm pits (double yuk) or worse ( yikes), knowing that my ruggedly handsome face would be the next thing to use it?

My towel. The towel that I use after my bath or shower and hang up in the bathroom to dry....disappears, only to be found in the laundry bin a couple of days later with no explanation.

My socks. Blue socks. I bought 30 pairs all the same, as they were in a sale. Now I find seven in my drawer just having emptied the ironing basket onto the bed.

I appreciate the love, and sharing things with your father.........I would like to point out one or two things.
You complain about my smelly feet.
You complain about my toenails.
You complain about my smelly bottom
SO WHY DO YOU STEAL ALL MY SENSITIVE MAN STUFF.
I'm off to bed, better moisturise first.

Happiness is a warm pussy!

Cats!
Not the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but the real thing. Cats are a mans best friend. Mind you, you are either a cat person or a dog person....you can have both, but you always prefer one.
It's the same with rugby or football, red or white wine.....you do both....but you always choose the same one first.

We have Hamish the dog. He is good for two things.

Disappearing for thirty seconds and leaving you a message ..... and smelling. Neither of those are talents that have much use in life....maybe the second is useful for keeping foxes away but only outside....inside not so hot. Sheena, my wife is now threatening him with a variety of outcomes....it gives me a vision of what I have to look forward to. I am 21 months older than my wife (doesn't she just remind me of it!!!) if in a few years you see an old man feathered to a dog kennel on a chain outside then don't be surprised.
Cats are much better. They are working animals in our house, killing machines in fact. I have had to put some additional protection round the hole in the outhouse wall where we have had a family of tits every year since we have been here.

Wednesday, (Le chat noir), spends her outdoors, sitting outside the outhouse with the stare of a psychopath, waiting, waiting, like an Irishman for a Guinness.
Don't get me wrong, I do love the little presents that I am frequently left by the back door but the tits are almost part of the family by default.
Dogs are stupid, bundles of energy....well they are when they are young, whereas cats give you just the right amount of affection. "I will sit on your lap and once I have marked my territory with my lethal claws, I expect you to give me just the right amount of stroking until I have had enough, then I shall turn upon you and savage you for failing to realise when I have been sated."
For those who have not seen them....check out the sad cat and dog diaries on you tube

Sad cat diary -Click here http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKffm2uI4dk

Sad dog diary -Click here http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw1C5T-fH2Y

Fine them? I'd rather have them shot!

The UK government has decided that it wishes to give on the spot fines for the plonkers who ruin driving for the rest of us on motorways by sticking to the middle lane.
Why do these idiots think that when they are alone on a motorway, that they need to stick to the middle lane? Is the motorway not wide enough that they believe that they will be sucked off the side and thrown into the fiery pits of hell? How do they ever manage on a country road in  Scotland I will never know.
As a calm responsible person, I have tried to educate some of these charming people in the past. Coming at them from the left lane and indicating to pull out behind and then overtake, I would then indicate left and pull gracefully back into the left hand lane and slow down waiting for them to overtake again and understand that the left hand lane is a place of safety......but no! They overtake in the middle lane and keep on going and not heeding my advice....so I repeat the procedure but then move off into the distance, in the correct lane, sad to think that they have not acted upon my example.

They also want to fine tailgaters. Magic. These idiots might as well be sitting in your back seat as you can almost smell their cheap cologne. They continue with their actions because they have never had an accident......they have probably caused thousands as drivers spend their time fearing what is happening behind and fail to see what is happening in front.
I don't think that the government has gone far enough.

People who continually use their horns should be locked in a dark room with them blaring for 48 hours. Boy racers honk at each other as a greeting whilst the rest of us panic taking it as a warning that something is about to hit us.

People who don't indicate because they work on the natural assumption that everyone else knows exactly what they mean to do or because they can't be bothered as hey are too busy texting at the time.
I would like to see those rotating guns from the millennium falcon placed at the middle of roundabouts so that abusers can be blown up and their mangled wreckage left at the roadside as a warning to others.

People who choose the wrong lane at roundabouts and decide to weave in and out cos they can't be bothered to read the three road signs before the roundabout. They should be sent to Los Angeles and left in the middle of a seven lane highway on foot.

People in traffic jams who think that because one lane is moving half a mile an hour quicker that they  simply MUST move into it only to find that they simply MUST move back in fifty feet to the previous lane. They can't be British, surely! We all love a good queue as it gives us something to moan about. Even if the world is about to end, queues have protocol.

I think that if the police are going to fine these people....I INSIST that they use a compulsory taser on them first. I think that would be a much greater deterrent than a fine.
"Come out of the car please sir."............this will only take a moment.......ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!

"HERE'S ......JOSE!"

The worlds worst kept secret has finally come true. Jose has come home.

Older and wiser with more silverware in his back pocket.
 Is he calmer? We will have to wait and see.
The one thing that we can guarantee is that the Special One will have a trail of media in his wake, hanging on his every word and comparing his new performances with his old ones.
Will he invest Romans money or will he just get an extra 10% from the players who are there?
How many new players will come in?
Will he extend John Terry's contract.
Will Fernando Torres move on?
Will there be a marquee signing up front?

.....just need to. Renew my Stamford Bridge membership.
.....already looking forward to the pre season tours of the Far East and America.

....ah heaven.

Back in the US, back in the USSR........

Just a quick note to all of those of you out there who are logging on to my little blog.

As a wrinkly middle aged teacher with a love of chickens and gardening, I am always pleased to see that my little rants and personal tales are being read across the world. I do appear to be quite popular in Russia.
Whilst I can understand my wife, children and other odds and sods within my family and social circle having a quick squint at my blog......well it is better than two minutes of pure ranting face to face which normally happens across the dinner table or after a dinner party usually after copious amounts of wine.

Please feel free to drop me a comment. Let me know if I have changed your life in even the smallest of ways.
Have I made you smile?
Have I struck a chord with a fellow grump somewhere?
Are you a happy blog reader somewhere in the middle of the Russian countryside who can appreciate the joy that a baby chick brings to your life or are you President Vladimi Putin, reading my westernised blog and thinking that I, Bobby Birss, am personally responsible for the fall of communism and the destruction of the Berlin Wall due to my grumpy nature and inability to make students understand mathematics.
Should I be worried that a secret group of KGB assassins are currently hiding in my garage to plot my ultimate downfall.....not knowing that three broody bantams are willing to peck them to death thinking that they may be about to harm PINGU and GRUMPY, my two baby chicks?

Please, please leave me a little comment, even if it is just a smiley face to know that somewhere out in his big wide world, I may have made someone smile.
Keep on blogging.

Why Eric Whitacre must die by my hand!

"Dear reader I married him......but if Eric Whitacre had been available then I wouldn't have looked twice at him," are words that are written somewhere in a journal that my wife keeps or would have if she still kept one like she did when she was at school. A little red one with a lock and a key (that you could probably open using a hair pin.)

I've never met the man but the desire to have him "taken out" in a slow and painful way has now come to a head.

Who is he, I hear you ask?

He is an American composer/conductor....apparently.He ran a course for choral singers last year to which Sheena attended and it's been downhill ever since.

"Oh he's very good looking." ........ "Oh....Really!"

You can tell that your marriage is in trouble when she pulls up images of him on her ipad to show dinner guests just exactly HOW good looking he is.
The kids refer to him as "new dad"
Now, the last straw. There, in her car is the album with his glossy blonde hair. Not hidden away but on display.

Please keep an eye on the obituaries column as he should be here shortly......"Conductor killed in baton related incident!"

Baby chick diary 3.

What do you mean it's black?

I went down to start cleaning up in the chicken shack and was surprised to hear a little cheep coming from underneath the three heads of Cerberus.....otherwise known as Jinny, Cheryl and Adele my three broody bantams who have shared the role of hatching my 5 eggs.

I started to peel away the feathers and wings to see if I could find the source of the noise and out popped......well ......PINGU. A baby chick that looked like an escapee from Happy Feet.

Small, cute and suitably shy for it's first public showing, I waved Sheena to come down and have a look. ......much "awe - ing" ensued.

Later I took the new addition to the family up to Bear's bedroom hoping that the cheeps would stir her from under her covers....it took a while.

I moved the small chicken run into the garage to keep the new chick and its three mums safe from foxes and to keep them cleaner than the outside chicken run would have done.

Now hopefully we will have more arrivals tomorrow as that is the 21 day incubation period completed.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. We were sad to lose Dolly this week of natural causes. She would always be bustling about and complaining loudly with her big bug eyes.

More screwing around for me then!

My wife has just come back from IKEA again!

Yet another pile of boxes loaded into the car in such a way that she just HAD to have the top down as she drove home.
So far I have made her two cupboards in the new "pantry" just so she now has space for her entertaining crockery and glasses. We have crockery and glasses for use everyday. We also have the unit for the "wedding" china and another unit for the crystal glasses.....
Two CD/DVD racks for storing clear glass jars in the pantry and DVD's in the conservatory.
AND a wardrobe in the new spare bedroom.

It's all the little things that go with it, such as the pingers that means you just press the door and it pings out so you don't need unsightly door knobs.
What did we ever do before IKEA? Oh yes, there was MFI. "He was so drunk that he swayed like an MFI wardrobe," a joke that has been cracked so often that it is still funny even after MFI have closed down.
Remember when Habitat started and that was the "IN" place to go for home furnishings...as long as you wanted it red, white or black.
IKEA, is it here to stay? I hope so. Sweden has given us some wonderful things over the years.

ABBA, well Agnetha in particular.

Volvo. Not always sexy but I know which car I will pray I WOULD have been driving should I ever hit something.

The Swedish Chef. Comic genius.

...but there was also Sven Goran Eriksen........well, no country is perfect.