Vespax Vobiscum

It's not all men that are wankers. It's mainly just the ones with driving licences.

It's very simple. What my transportation lacks in ability to hold enough fuel to go long distances; what it lacks by way of sound system; what it lacks by way of windows... it makes up for in flexibility and acceleration.

It's a fucking Vespa. That's what they do.

It will get through smaller gaps than your car.

It will get away from lights more quickly than your car.

It is not a threat to your manliness, you knob-end, and it does NOT mean you need to fucking carve me up, and scream past me at fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit to get in front of me, because your "manly" pride is somehow offended.

You're a dick.

Every night I finish the journey home along a road where the presence of two schools means the speed limit (and you need to look up the meaning of L.I.M.I.T., knob cheese) has been reduced to 20 miles per hour. On this road, but by no means only here, every night some total plonker screams past me at over 35 just because they can't bear to sit behind a scooter doing 20.

Men with small penises, each and every one of them.

The other night I arrived to find a small girl, maybe 8 or 9 had been run over, and was screaming her poor bloody head off. She'll live, thankfully.

Wankers.

Rant ends.

Near death experiences probably won't.

Guitar tuveer....

Last Sunday, the day before his birthday, the son of a friend came to visit. The friend came too, as the wean is only four.

Somewhere Mrs Graph managed to find a suitably-sized guitar that had been bought for Steppy II and forgotten about. Covered in dust, un-tuned and short of a string it was, but the wean immediately loved it, what with him being the son of a very musical mother.

Although he is left-handed and the guitar is not, that didn't stop him thrashing at the strings in as tuneless a manner as one might possibly imagine.

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

After about twenty minutes - to be frank - the frink got a bit much. So, thinks I, a shrewd approach will stop the strum.

"Young 'un", says I, " I hear you're a very good singer".

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

"I'm a very good guitarist too. Listen".

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

"Oh, yes. Well, I can hear that you are; but what about the singing? Why don't you sing something for me?"

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

"I'm playing this, though".

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

"Well, that's true. But I'd like to hear your very good singing. What's your favourite song"?

"Without pause or glance up at me he said, "This one".

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink. Frink.

Common, are we?

I have found myself with a sudden yearning to visit Tomsk. It's in the middle of absolutely fucking nowhere, Russia.

This is largely @Konnolsky's fault, but it also has a lot to do with growing up with the fucking Wombles.

Although some might, I can't blame the Wombles for the environmental or left-ish politics I have in me; that's a reaction to my parents, being bullied at school and - mostly - the hideous injustices wrought by Thatcher; but they have apparently given me some hitherto unrecognised urge to visit places.

I suddenly realise that I've already been to Bulgaria & Tobermory. Perhaps now is the time for the rest...

A Wombling world tour would be very, very expensive. To visit the names of the first proper cast list would mean getting to Orinoco, Bungo, Tomsk, Wellington and Cholet in addition to the two I've been to.

Hmm.

It needs a plan.

But then, as well as that first five, there's also Cairngorms, Alderney, Shanxi, Adelaide, Stepney and Obidos from the second series.

Shit. It's a fucking nightmare! Do those even really COUNT as true Wombles?

And then, worse again! There are some really bloody obscure ones; Omsk, Culvain, Yellowstone Boston, Ness, Ross and Cromarty (The Water Wombles, it seems), Botany, Speyer and Heilbronn, Atlanta, and Idaho, Heidelberg, Hohenzollern, Cairns and Perth, Eucula, Dalai Gartok (!) Cousin Tokyo, Hirado, Dunedin, and Great-Great Aunt M Murrumbidgee...

And saddest of all there's poor Nanking. Fancy spending all that nameless time as a young and adolescent Womble, longing for the day when you can go to school having come of age, so you can prove to your Womble sixth-form mates that you're now the big man with your cool new name.

And then imagine arriving at Bulgaria's study, proudly stepping up, convinced the moment of cool adulthood has arrived and randomly sticking your pin in the atlas only to get a name that rhymes with wanking.

What a cruel bloody Womble tradition. The Wombling bastards.

Hmm. I may have over-concerned myself with Wombles.

Make good use of bad rubbish, eh?

Enough (Eu)rope to hang themselves

Mrs Graph and I have discussed dragging Steppy II to Tromsø. October-ish. Maybe.

We explained this to him this evening.

"Where's that?", says he.

Fair question.

But I - regrettably - decide he has to tell me. "Where do you think it might be?"

"Is it in Europe"?

"Yes".

"Is it in Hungary"?
"No. Not so far East".

"Is it in Holland"?

"No. Further North".

"Estonia"?

"No; a bit too Eastern again. North of the Netherlands and western-ish".

"Is it in Portugal"?

"PORTUGAL!!!? Where do you think Portugal is, that means it's North of the bloody Netherlands"!?

"Well, is it Macedonia then?
"Mass-a-bleedin'-Donia?? I hate to think what they're teaching you at school"!

"Well I don't know then. Is it in Alaska"?

God give me strength.

Five Finger (re)Shuffle

"So Gordon... What did you really think of Blair?"

A reshuffle

Our original choice for Chancellor turned out to be a complete donkey.

A safe pair of hands has been brought in.

To introduce our guest Tzars...

This evening it was suggested, on the national TV channel, that there may have been some kind of 'puppet government' installed in Iran. This having been followed almost immediately by (the increasingly difficult to see) Question Time (smears all over the lens) it struck those of us gathered here at 'graph Manors that a puppet government would actually be a really fucking good idea.

Defence Secretary



Agriculture secretary



Foreign Secretary



Minister without Porkfolio



Chancellor of the Exchequer



Prime Minister



'Oh yes'.

Fizziognomy

Those little sherbert saucer things have been flying about outside the house again today. I wouldn't have noticed except that for a while the sun was out and they were casting little shadows all over the front room; like a disco ball in negative.

It seems odd that they don't make any noise. So not only are they quiet, but they also must be environmentally sound.

So why don't we run cars on sherbert?

Anyway, I thought I caught sight of one of the Herberts that pilot them as I started from a snooze on the sofa to the silent cacophony of their centrifugal spin...

Board senseless

There's a very small, humanoid, burrowing creature (which sings tunelessly during the day and can be heard gently snoring sometimes during the night) living in a series of tunnels - of its own making and design - in the concrete that acts as the floor of our house. It makes its way slowly about using a tiny, battery-powered torch it has attached to its head with a piece of elastic that I suspect was stolen from a pair of boxer shorts I used to own (which I bought in Next) and it tunnels with a pickaxe - about half an inch long (that I suppose it bought at Focus).

This whole scenario often causes me serious concern. It seems to me to be entirely illogical. Even, dare one say, utterly unlikely.






Why haven't we got floorboards?

The Don Qui-Jacquette

It's on, I tell you. It's on...

http://pseudograph-pseudography.blogspot.com/2009/12/handbags-and-glad-rags.html

Oh, and RIP, Brother of the lesser-known Dingle.

Pulp friction

The other evening I explained to Mrs Graph that I had had, that morning, a very brief dream before being woken by the alarm on my phone. In the dream I was standing at a grand piano, and about to sing a duet with the pianist, who just happened to be the uber-cool former frontman of Britpop sensations Pulp.

In return for this revelation I was mocked mercilessly. Ridiculed isn't too strong a word. So intense was the drive for humiliation that the Steppy - home on her break from University - was brought through to the room to join in.

Now, I can accept that maybe it wasn't a cool dream; but I don't make them happen like that, any more than most other people do. Pah.

Worse though is that the very next morning, Mrs Graph decided to share with me her own dream of the night just passed.

"I was at a swimming pool. And it had a really nice lounge area. And I was wandering around the lounge when I saw someone I knew in the dream; so I sat down and had a really nice long chat with him. Guess what! It was Ronnie Corbett!"

How the hell does that work then?

Handbags and Glad Rags

Last night whilst out with friends, the subject turned - inevitably at this late time of year - to the annual compilation of the competition Dead Pool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_pool

For reasons about which I am unclear, I was not permitted to have Frank Bough, but that's not the point.

Anyway, equally inevitably, thoughts turn more to hope than prediction, which - of course - means Margaret Thatcher's name comes up.

And a fully horrific thought struck me.

She's going to die about ten days before the 2010 General Election, isn't she?

Isn't she?

You can picture it if you try. The perfect opportunity for those unscrupulous bastards to exploit the moment. An Election Broadcast, In Memoriam.

There's one of those Big Video/film advert voiceover voices.

"Remember her commitment to modernising Britain..."

CUT TO THATCHER - "And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxism".

"Remember her victories abroad..."

CUT TO THATCHER - "Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the marines".

"Remember her victories at home..."

CUT TO THATCHER "We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and much more dangerous".

"Remember her compassion for all of us... "

CUT TO THATCHER - "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women; and there are families".

"Margaret Thatcher may have gone, but you can honour her memory. Remember all that. Remember what she stood for. Remember Margaret Thatcher....


... And Vote Labour this polling day".

Red facedbook

Steppy II has become a user of the Social Network phenomenon that is facebook. He's been on it for about a week and a half, and at last count had 86 "friends." For reasons that will become clear, we went through them this evening. There are about eight he doesn't actually know. There was one we have removed completely after a wee chat about the conversation we'd had last week in relation to the caution to be applied in the 'cyber'-world when one is only 11. The girl, who "looks about my age" and who approached him unilaterally, claiming to live in Washington DC has now gone.

An overreaction of ludicrous proportions; but a piece of theatre to make the point.

Anyway, the provocation for this little expedition around his facebook account came this evening after tea. One was looking at one's own facebook account, and the endless parade of status updates, when one espied a change in Steppy II's.

I showed it to Mrs Graph. "One knows not what to say!" quoth I.

"Too right, " she replied, with a slight smirk.

"Steppy II", I asked... "How was your day?"

"Good".

"Good? Wow. Why was it 'good'"?

"Well, you know. Fine".

Concerned to ask again, in case it nose-dived from 'good' to 'fine' to 'average' to 'poor' to 'fucking horrible! All right?' I changed the subject.

"What have you done since you got in?"

"Nothing".

"Nothing? What about homework"?

"Yeah. Homework".

"What about X Box"?

"Yeah. X Box".

"What about facebook"?

"No".

"No"?

"No".

"Are you sure"?

"Yeah"

"Are you totally sure"?

"Why"?

"Well, your facebook status changed 47 minutes ago".

"What!? Are you sure"?

"Yes. I'm looking at it".

"Well I didn't... What does it say"?

I glance at Mrs Graph. She shrugs.

"What does it say?"

"Erm... Have you given someone your password"?

"No."

"Well, I think you probably have, even if unintentionally"

"I have NOT! But why? What does it say"?

"It says... erm... 'I love willies'."

Sea food and eat it...

I went for a very nice curry last night with Mrs Graph and Steppy II.

At the table Steppy II ran us through some of his more recently-learned, interesting facts.

"D'you know jellyfish? They're 95% water", he said.

"Are they not 95% jelly?" asked Mrs Graph.

"Yeah. And 5% fish", he grinned.

Diät of worms

Nigel's making a lot of noise out there. Pissed up again. He's been on the Pils.

The Counsel of Worms

There's a worm at the bottom of my garden, and his name is wiggly woo.







Well, actually it's Nigel, and he's a retired planner who worked for a local planning authority for 27 years before taking early retirement and becoming a 'Planning Consultant'. He largely advises people on how to win actions against his former planning colleagues whenever they seek to refuse applications for conservatories and mobile telephone masts in his customers own gardens.

With his pension he now earns more than he did when working full time for a salary. He has become active in local politics, but has been unable to win a seat on the Council which used to employ him, although he lost to the Conservative candidate at the last election by only 113 votes.

Nigel chooses to live in our garden because it's close to where his children - now teenagers - live with his estranged wife.

He had to take some time off work recently when Steppy II accidentally ran over him. Steppy II was on his bike, and crushed him slightly, in the general area of his clitellum. Steppy II apologised, and Nigel tried to go to work using his other end, but people spotted he was talking through his arse.

Never give a sucker an even break...

Today I saw the Chief Executive of Dyson, the world's leading manufacturer of vacuum cleaners, deliver a presentation about the company. He was very illuminating.

James Dyson, its founder, began the company sixteen years ago, having invented a brilliant system which allows for the separation of dust from air through the clever use of centrifugal forces in such a way that the traditional vacuum cleaner bag is no longer required. That means the cleaner never loses suction.

Dyson invented this system in a building at the bottom of his garden. He went through 5, 127 prototypes before finally getting it right.

He then tried to persuade the major makers of vacuum cleaners, including both Hoover and Electrolux, to buy the invention and take up the idea for their own. They refused, partly because they were making so much money from selling replacement bags that they thought the system would destroy their profitability. One senior Hoover executive, a Mr Rutter, later expressed his regret at not taking Dyson up on the offer, stating that they should have bought the idea simply so they could shelve it.

Dyson decided to manufacture the cleaner himself. His company now operates in 48 countries world-wide, sells between 5 and 7 million units every year and is the biggest brand in that industry.

In other words he's gone from crazy science bloke in a shed to world domination in under two decades. Mad inventor to global supremacy in 16 years.

I thought Batman was supposed to stop that sort of thing!!! Exactly what are paying that useless fucker for??

Net gains

Steppy II's maternal grandmother - Mrs Graph's Scottish mother - has always been supportive of Steppy II's aspirations to play for Manchester United; albeit that that is clearly morally wrong.

Today that support has extended to taking him shopping for a new pair of training shoes.

Whilst in the shops, along with Mrs Graph, a conversation was had about the decision of Steppy II's maternal grandmother's former neighbour's daughter - now aged 16 - to play netball for Scotland, qualifying through her own mother, also a Scottish woman.

Hell! That was a long and confusing sentence. I wonder how that happened.

Anyway, following the conversation about her choosing to play netball for Scotland, Steppy II's maternal grandmother said to him, "You could do that. I'm Scottish, so you could play for Scotland when you're older".

"But I'm rubbish at netball!" he protested.

Five A Day

Mrs Graph has just told me that, yesterday, she bought Steppy II some blueberries for his breakfast this morning.

He loves blueberries, she says.

Anyway, when she got home tonight she went to the fridge for something else.

"Why didn't you have the blueberries for your breakfast?" she asked him, having seen them apparently untouched. "You LOVE blueberries!"

"I did!" he protested. "I had three".

Brain Sell

I went last night, with my colleague Lisa, to meet Matt. Matt is a man we worked with on a big project a year and a half ago, and is back in the area working as a consultant. This meant he was visiting overnight.

I think he was trying to impress Lisa. He spent a LOT of time trying to explain that he had a sensitive personality. He's been assessed as quiet. And sensitive. An extrovert. But quiet and sensitive. He has a female brain, he says. Which is why he is so sensitive. And great at multi-tasking. Which, in turn, is why he's so good in the kitchen.

"I wouldn't want you to think," he said to her, "that it's more than a sensitive, female brain. The rest of me is all man, I can assure you".

From which I gathered that he was saying "I have a big knob. But, urghhhh, nnyyoooooo!!! I don't want to touch it!!!'