Badger badger badger badger....

The Zutons - liars!

I've decided The Zutons are liars. Please see Exhibit A below:

Exhibit A - lyrics from 'Valerie'

CHORUS:

Cos since I've come on home,
Well my body's been a mess
And I've missed your ginger hair
And the way you like to dress
Won't you come on over
Stop making a fool out of me
Why won't you come on over Valerie?

Look again at the third line - "I've missed your ginger hair". Hmmm, seems unlikely to me....

(Note to those people reading this of the ginga persuasion - I'm joking, please don't kill me)

Taking the peas

Why is it that the peas in any pot-based noodle snack, be it a Pot Noodle, Super-Noodles to go or whatever, never seem to go soft? Everything else in the pot can turn to a gloopy mushy mess but the peas just sit there being crunchy, the gits!

Surely science has reached a point where we can work out how to get dehydrated peas to rehydrate properly? I mean, back in 1969 we had the technology to fake a moon landing, so why is something as easy as making peas soft so bloody difficult?

Photos of US and A

I've uploaded a few photos from the trip to NYC - more will be going up when I get my film developed but here's a few for now. Please, you look. Niiiice!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/morals/

Trainspotting

I've always thought trainspotting is a particularly crap hobby. Apart from the standing around in a cagoule with a thermos, it can't be that hard. Go to any station and you're bound to see loads of the badgers.

No sleep in Brooklyn (well, Manhattan Island anyway)

They call NYC the city that never sleeps, and there's a bloody good reason for that. It's not because there's always somewhere open to do something, although this does seem to be true. No, it's because of the fact the every driver in the city is constantly honking the car / passenger / rickshaw / cyclist / NYPD patrol car / air in front of them.

New York is just crazy when it comes to traffic; I'd never seen a taxi wedged under a truck until a few days ago in Times Square. The fact that no-one seems to give a monkeys about red lights, pedestrians crossing the road, turning right from the fourth lane on the left on a red light or getting out of the way of fire engines doesn't really help, and that combined with the temperament of your average New Yorker is just a nightmare.

New Yorkers aren't as bad as they're sometimes portrayed. Yes, they are all in a hurry all the time, and yes, some of them can be slightly abrupt (in the case of the staff employed on the Subway just downright bloody rude), but when they try they can be genuinely nice people. Of course they're nicer to you if you tip them, something that soon becomes a pain in the arse if you're not used to it. Oh, you've served me at the bar; you'll need a tip then. You've driven me five blocks in your cab, tip for you sir. Cleaned my hotel room? Well, you are the bloody cleaner but no no, of course, a tip for you too. I don't have a problem with tipping people like waitresses if they've given good service or whatever, but seriously, tipping a barman for serving you a beer? Americans are crazy...

Speaking of crazy Americans, I saw some crazy dudes whilst I was in New York. My favourite has to be the guy on home-made roller skates barrelling through Central Park wearing a Santa hat. I liked the randomness of that one

No sleep 'til Brooklyn

Well nearly, there's a few days to go until I go to New York but not many! As such this is likely to be my last post until I get back unless I have a flash of inspiration at the pub tomorrow or at Heathrow. Rest assured when I get back though I'll have plenty to write about, after all the Americans are even more crazy than the English. Hell, they're nearly as crazy as the Dutch!

You may remember a while back I wrote a post about people having sex with animals. Well, it seems that some people have taken this to whole new levels. Popbitch today reported about a man in the states who was caught having sex with his wifes Labrador. That had been dead for three or four days. Now, how desperate must you be to actually do that? I can't imagine it's an impulse thing because any normal person wouldn't keep a dead dog around for four days, so the guy obviously thought "my wife's rubbish, I know, I'll keep the dogs corpse for a few days and then have my wicked way".

How bad would you feel if you were the wife?

A sort of blog update thing

Just a quick update around the blog really. You've probably noticed some small changes to the way the blog looks, just a few tweaks around the lists on the right and some colour changes mainly.

The really sharp ones of you out there may have noticed that the times of the blog changes have a), switched to 24HR format, and b), all gone up the swanny.

The reason for the times being up the spout is that after a year or so of blogging I've realised yuo can change the time zone you live in within the blogger settings. So I did, and it's retrospectively changed all the previous post times. Which I hadn't expected.

You may also notice the font size of the posts increases slightly from now on. There's a very good reason for that, too. I've set up email blogging so I can blog directly from my phone, which is great as I can post as and when the mood takes me. However, I've yet to figure out how to control font size when posting that way, and to be honest the text is quite small anyway (well, it is on my screen but I am running at a crazy resolution).

Anyway, please continue to read, talk about and generally promote the blog, I reckon I could be very nearly at a readership figure somewhere in double figures! Cock-on!

Mushrooms

Everybody knows that you can eat some mushrooms while others will kill you, or make you think you can fly. I'd have hated to be the poor bastard whose job it was to work out which was which.

"Here you go Joe, try this one"
"Gaaaak"

I bet the money's good though.

Evil twin

I've been thinking for a while that there's something missing in my life and I think I've finally worked out what it is. I need an evil twin. I reckon it would be really cool (I mean who could forget the evil Michael Knight from Knight Rider - awesome!).

Evil Hoff

Obviously my evil twin will have to look exactly like me, except with a little triangular goatee. He'll need a suitable name befitting an evil twin, something like 'Jason' or 'Ramone' maybe...

My Flickr account

I've set up a Flickr account so anyone who's interested can see photo's I've taken and uploaded. The account's linked to my mobile so I can upload pics in real time if something truly awesome happens, so keep an eye out for some really random photos very soon (certainly expect photos from New York!).

Here's the link so add it to your favourites...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/morals

Go go Ninja Dinosaur

Go to this website, buy the album. XFM played "The monkeys are breaking out of the zoo" the other morning and it's wicked. (I should point out it's all for charity (won't someone please think of the children?!)).

Apathy

Meh.

A buh-? No not a buh, a bomb!

I'm off to New York in a few weeks, and obviously there are still quite a few security measures in place to ensure no-one tries to hijack the plane with a plastic spork or go wild with a tube of toothpaste ("Tower this is Captain Johnson, we have an emergency up here - we're all minty fresh and free of gum disease!").

I'm assuming people are still fairly jumpy too, so I will be trying as hard as I can not to say any of the following during the trip:

• "I'm so excited I could explode!"
• "Now where did I leave my suitcase?"
• "A one way ticket please - I won't be coming back. Ever."
• "I will kill the infidel scum!"
• "What are you going to do with your 72 virgins?"

I wonder if they'll let me post to my blog from prison?

Kids say the funniest things

It's a well known fact that kids say funny things, it's what they're for (that and fetching another lager from the fridge when you're watching the telly). Normally the things they come out with are fairly innocuous, but occasionally they come out with an absolute gem.

My favourite ever comment I've heard leave a child's mouth was in the pub, when the son of a regular turned around to the barmaid and said "bloody hell, you've got massive tits". I don't think I've ever laughed so much in my life.

Janet Street Porter

Why? What possible purpose does she serve? Answers in the comments please...

Plane stupid

Easyjet have had a bright idea - they're currently trying to sort out their planes so that you can use your mobile during a flight.

Couple of things: firstly, that means that either Easyjet have magic planes that stay up in the air with skyhooks, or all that stuff about mobiles causing planes' instruments to go wrong is bollocks. I don't think Easyjet have magic planes.

Secondly, they think this is a reason to travel with them. Really? So I can fly to somewhere nice and sunny and spend the flight in relative peace (assuming someone's stowed any children in the hold), or I can spend the flight listening to some ignorant toss-bag bellowing in to his phone...? Sign me up for tickets on the second flight. The thing is too that although this is maybe bearable on a short hop to Amsterdam, once Easyjet start doing this the other airlines are going to follow suit. Who's up for an 8 hour flight to New York with everyone using their phones?

Expect instances of air rage to increase in the next couple of years....

Ick, ick and thrice ick

I don't often worry about the state of the world but this week there have been three somewhat disturbing news stories which just make me think there's something very wrong with people.

The first one that caught my eye was about a man who, having been banned from every field in Britain after he was caught having sex with a horse called Molly, was caught hanging around stables in the early hours.

Then comes the story of the three 20 year old guys in the US who saw a picture of a girl who died in a motorcycle accident and, having decided she was pretty, went and tried to dig her up so they could have sex with her. They even bought condoms (I'm assuming they wanted to ensure the corpse didn't get pregnant and give birth to little dead zombie babies).

Then there's the story of the man who covered himself in olive oil, rolled around in a load of oats and then got horses to lick him clean. Just no! No no no!!

All of these stories have been reported in the press and can be found online with a quick search of Google news, so I'm not making this shit up. I mean, what is wrong with these freaks? What makes someone think "I know, I'm going to go and fuck a horse this morning"?

Anyone?

1 year old

I've just realised my blog is a year old - how the hell I've managed to keep enough interest to actually write this shit, let alone keep a regular reader base is beyond me. Anyway, thanks to everyone who reads this drivel, here's to another year!

Petrol stations and fire probably don't mix

I was at the petrol station yesterday and noticed something a little worrying. As far as I could tell, the only firefighting equipment available should soemthing catch alight were two small fire extinguishers and a bucket of sand. Now, call me odd if you like, but if I was in a petrol station which was on fire, and I had a choice between having it away on my toes or standing there and attempting to tackle the blaze with a small fire extinguisher and a bucket of sand I know which I'd be doing.