» Things we do to fit in

LGA
I was over in New York Last week, staying with my sister Sophie and her family. On the Thursday, whilst her and her American husband were out at work, I agreed to look after their two kids (my neice and nephew) Brad and Mary-Jo (could they have given them any more bloody American sounding names?). Anyway I took them out down to the river where they did what 2 and 4 years olds do - fed the ducks, fell in the dirt, ate the dirt, needed the toilet when there was none near etc - generally had a good time. Towards the middle of the afternoon, they were busy chasing the ducks on the green. They were totally rubbish at it, so I though I would join in and show them how it should be done. I got us all to form a circle (well actually a triangle) around a big flock of geese and then we charged in together. Those birds crapped themselves, and all flew up in the air at once in a huge mass. Mary-Jo looked delighted, she tried to tell me something, but I couldn't make it out because just at that moment a dirty great noisy aeroplane flew overhead. Sometimes we forget the joys of harmless fun, playing with kids in the park...
(Tue 20th Jan 2009, 12:49, More)

» Housemates

Communal Living
I was born and brought up in a commune, and let me tell you, there were some seriously strange people there. I wasn't allowed out to school, but had to stay and work for the commune, so it was only much later that I realised quite how strange my situation was. There was one woman (let's call her Liz) who had somehow managed to get herself into position as the 'boss' of the commune. She was big and fat. No, she was huge. She had never been formally chosen as the leader, but she was so charismatic and manipulative that somehow she could always get anyone to do whatever she wanted. She didn't do any work (all the rest of us had to), we had to prepare all her meals and clear up after her. She even made a rule that everyone in the commune would practice celibacy (except for her of course). Everyone was totally under her power. You don't realize it at the time, but living in a place like that can totally destroy your spirit. It was a huge effort for me to leave, but at last I have, and now I'm working hard at making a new life for myself without that controlling influence. The only thing I really miss is the honey.
(Fri 27th Feb 2009, 16:28, More)

» IT Support

RX35 Switch
I work in IT support for the military, so if you read any further I will have to kill you.

A few years ago I was stationed on a large warship.

Now, you might expect IT security on the shipwide control system to be pretty tight, and indeed the firewalls to prevent external attacks are very secure (you don't really want some geek with a wireless laptop hacking in and controlling the ship lol), but if someone can actually get onto the ship, there are network ports all over which they can plug into and gain access to the whole control path.

One time when the ship pulled in a small vessel which was suspected of smuggling, the shit-for-brains marines failed to search it properly and a handful of ne'erdowells then sneaked aboard, plugged into the network, and proceded to arse around inside it. As well as mucking about with the data on the brig, thay also managed to blow a fuse on the waste control circuits, which meant I had to take a trip out all the way to home base to get a replacement RX35 switch from central stores.

As it turns out this was quite a lucky break, because while I was away this same bunch of chancers blew the whole ship up by firing some proton torpedos down the main reactor exhaust pipe.

Phew!
(Fri 25th Sep 2009, 9:40, More)

» School Days

The School
My school was great. I never knew my parents, so school was the first place I really felt like I belonged. It was one of those 'modern' type of schools with not much structure to the day. The emphasis was always on sticking together and looking out for each other, rather than academic achievement. We never did much work, in fact I can't even remember any of the teachers - it was just halcyon days of playing with my mates and going wherever we wanted in the big wide world. Until one day we all got eaten by a big whale. Bloody mammals.
(Wed 4th Feb 2009, 13:49, More)

» I'm your biggest Fan

Never, ever, bloody anything, ever.
It was early in the summer of '92. The three piece combo of musical impresarios going by the name of ‘Right Said Fred’ were topping the charts with the anthemic Deeply Dippy. Mobile phones were still a brick sized rarity carried by twats in red braces. Prime Minister John Major was the most exciting thing to hit British politics for literally months. But all of this was eclipsed by one man who was at the pinnacle of his immense powers of entertainment, bathing the country in the light of his comic genius, and we few, we lucky few had the opportunity to see him in the flesh. It was just five short years since he had split our sides and ruptured our spleens with the gag fest that was ‘The Comic Strip Presents... Mr Jolly Lives Next Door’ - the half hour show that provided the script for our Uni years. Not Adrian Edmondson, not Rik Mayall, not even the incomparable Peter Cook. No, we had the chance to see, live and in the flesh, the one and only Nicholas Parsons!

It's true. His Aunt's next door neighbour had once walked past the old chemical factory in Grimsby, and this meant he was close enough to being a bona fide engineer for the committee to choose him as the post prandial speaker at the annual dinner of the Institute of Chemical Engineers (Scottish Branch). And as lowly student members of the Institution we were eligible to get tickets at the reduced price of ten pounds!

Now in those days ten pounds was worth much more than today. In today’s money it's probably equivalent to ten thousand pounds, or, for our continental readers, about ten Euros. For us impoverished students it was a lot, but surely worth it for the cultural development of immersing ourselves in the unrestrained verbiage of surely the best after dinner speaker in the world, ever. The fact it included a five course dinner and free bar was irrelevant. Somehow (I have blanked out the depths of degradation we had to sink to) we raised the money, and then at last we had the tickets in our hands.

At last, after what seemed like three lifetimes of waiting the great night arrived.
Dressed to kill, we turned up at the hotel, stomachs fluttering with eager anticipation. Our young knees, exposed to the world beneath our kilts, trembled with excitement. As students, the seating planners had put us in a table at the back, near the toilets. The bastards. On the top table sat the great man himself, tanned and glowing, chatting easily with the fawning committee members. The bastards. The food arrived. Despite being poor starving students, the butterflies in our midriffs prevented us exploiting to the full the sumptuous banquet presented. I myself only managed two second helpings of the main course and three of the desert. The vast quantities of free wine we consumed were purely to constrain the great shudders of excitement which wracked our bodies every time we thought of the great event we were soon to witness.

Then the moment arrived. The coffee was drunk (or, in our case, more free wine), waffer thin mints were distributed, and Nicholas the Great stood. An expectant hush fell over the room. Not a single glass chinked, not a single petite four was crunched. You could have heard a pin drop on a mountain of feathers. Nicholas began to speak. Humorous anecdote after humorous anecdote poured forth in a torrent, washing over us in a tide of bon mots, badinage and persiflage. He lifted us up and brought us down, led us one way, then quick as a flash disarmed us and left us helpless with chuckles. To watch a master a work is a pleasure. But the experience of that night was like no other. Nicholas Parsons is the master of mirth, the baron of banter, the prince of pleasantries, the lord of laughter, the wizard of wit, the sultan of satire, the ace of the anecdote, the raja of ribaldry and the ruddy rudest rip-roaringest rogerer of repartee.

All too soon it came to an end. As the audience sat dazed by the onslaught of mirth they had just experienced, we took our chance to actually meet the great man himself. Pausing only briefly to grab a couple of bottles each of fortification, we steamrollered through he hall and up to our idol. Four of us formed a protective ring around the guru, preventing the peons, who could never fully appreciate his talents like we could, from gaining access. He was ours! Then we actually talked to him. Face to face. Man to man. It was awesome. We displayed our adoring fanishness, such as how we had watched Mr Jolly Lives Next Door like maybe two or three times, and once when I visited a friends house as a boy, Sale of the Century was on the telly. How my parents used to listen to Radio four in the morning, which was the same station as his famous show Just a Minute was on, although I hadn't actually heard it. We unveiled to him our hopes and our dreams. Once he tried to stifle a yawn, no doubt as he thought about the other tedious people he would have to talk to later.

Then, after twenty minutes, disaster struck. The president of the Institute, who had been hovering outside our circle for some minutes, unable to penetrate politely, suddenly burst in, grabbed Mr Parsons elbow and said "Ah Nicholas, there's someone I would like you to meet...". In a flash, he was gone, and we were left with nothing but memories.

After our brush with the bright light of celebrity, the rest of the evening is a blur. I can recall daring escapades. At one point we employed the tablecloths to improvise Ghost costumes and scare the other guests. Such an impromptu display of amateur dramatics must have greatly impressed the professional entertainer in Nicholas. How the wine got spilled down his trousers, no one can remember. And the tragedy of the toupee is best forgotten.

My last memory is later in the evening. We were outside, ejecting copious amounts of Chateau Huey '87 from our insides over a wall in the hotel's rose garden - yes, unfortunately the excitement of the evening had proved just too much for our young constitutions. Nicholas appeared, walking to his car. We saw him pause briefly, and use his handkerchief to wipe a fleck of vomit splatter from the handle, before entering the back seat. The door closed. The engine roared. He was gone. Darkness descended.

Nicholas Parsons. Nicholas Bloody Parsons. Awesome.
(Tue 21st Apr 2009, 11:29, More)