Madness: you've either got it, or you haven't

There is a good-natured-looking crazy fella in Venezuela, according to a chap called Hutton (link here).

He's not got a patch on Carlotta the Mad, wife of an Emperor of Mexico. She was firmly in your full-baked category of nut jobs: spent days talking to a life-sized doll dressed in imperial robes and when her house caught fire, leaned out of the window (ok, sensible) shouting, "That is forbidden! That is forbidden!" at the flames (mad).

Nuns as batty as thought

A batty nun.

I am a menace

Weeks ago, in thrall to an “efficiency”, I bought a return ticket from Paris to Somewhere in Rural France to see Hughes the Elder. Leaving the house to catch the plane for Paris, I left the tickets on my bedside table. Arriving in Paris Gare de Lyon, I bought a second ticket to Somewhere in Rural France. Buying a return ticket would assure me of having a ticket for the return leg. I bought a single.

I surfed the internet (a fantastic device, they say it will be a big thing) and e-bought the e-return. I will pick it up at the station when I go home. After a lovely week of fine wine, strong cheese and odd dreams, Hughes the Elder drives me to Gare du Somewhere in Rural France.

There’s a diversion and we park a few minutes’ walk from the station. The diversion is a red herring which steals valuable moments. We arrive. I collect my ticket. Do I have my reservation number? Of course not. We argue. I don’t speak French and Hughes the Elder’s hearing is poor. I buy another ticket (this is the third I have bought for the same journey). I miss the train. I panic. We think. I get annoyed. I buy a ticket from a station 200 kms away.

We must drive quickly. Allez-vites, allez-vites. We are in the car. We are lost. We are found. We are going the wrong way. We are going the right way. We are where we started. We’ve lost half an hour. We must go quickly. We need a pee. We stop, pee and continue. My spirits have lifted. I am no longer angry. The gods smile on us. The journey is fast, the conversation engaging. We bond. We arrive. Will we find the station?

We do, miraculously quickly. I have my ticket. We joke about missing the train. The train is late. It arrives. I say my goodbyes and headbutt a girl walking in the opposite direction. My eyes water; she is bruised and affronted.

The train door won’t open. I try another. Hughes the Elder worries. No problem at all! I laugh and wave affably. My eyes are streaming and my nose throbs. I board the train and find a seat.

Two and a half hours later, I arrive in Paris. An hour to cross town and I arrive at Paris Orly airport with time to spare. I drop my mp3 player down a toilet.

Nuns not as batty as thought

Vindication at last for generations of nuns ridiculed into silence for their unscientific and, during the 70s at least, downright unpatriotic belief that looking at lewd pictures makes a boy go blind.

Champion

Although the idea of a Brand Champion, Company Values Champion or Quality Champion makes me want to vomit into my shoes, "Champion", alone, unqualified and unspecified, would make an excellent job title.

"Hi, Bob Hughes, Champion, pleased to meet you."

"So what are you a champion of, Bob?"

"Oh, you know, stuff."

whut up sugar-girl?

Dang pimp done stole my moves

Well grow me a mullet and call me Max!

Two perspectives on oil running out.

According to the sobre analysis of this rational, every-day Joe who is most certainly not a nut job, fruitcake, swivel-eyed loony or crackpot of any sort, civilisation as we know it will come to an end. Soon.

Not a loony

But according to a crack team of responsible, grey-suited, disinterested analysts who have never visited La-La Land, it´s all fine, nothing to worry about, blue skies, stick another SUV on the barbie. These folks are most certainly not gouging leeches or spittle-flecked madmen. Neither are they senile.

Never visited La-La Land

Who to believe?

Easy come, easy go

The president of Thai Airways, Kanok Abhiradee, must have been cock-a-hoop when he heard, on August 5th, that he had been awarded the 2005 World Airline Leadership Award by SkyTrax Research, which conducts surveys among airline passengers. According to the company's website, the awards are "the most recognised and respected mark of quality approval for the airline and airport industries".

(scroll to bottom left)

Mr Abhiradee had only five days to celebrate before his boss suspended him for "a crisis of huge losses" as reported by the FT. Life at the top certainly is topsy-turvy.

Perhaps, though, the answer lies in a closer look at SkyTrax's website.  

Scroll down the page and, below the black and blue image of last year's excellence awards plaque, there is a link to click on. The link is called, "Award Plague". Pity next year's winner.

Political correctness gone mad

First our right to shoot burglars went the way of the dinosaurs. Now those guilt-ridden middle class hand-wringers are after our right to have a pop at mindless maniacs hurtling about the skies in helicopters, interrupting lord knows how many afternoon naps.

This have-a-go hero has been arrested! Probably a war veteran. I've no doubt the acned youths dressed up as policemen desrved a cuff round the ear with a saucepan.

Now tell me it's not a slippery slope.

Innuendo and the law of diminishing returns

Don't get me wrong, I'm as fond as the next man of easing a well-judged innuendo into a natural opening, but surely Sky has brought the art into disrepute with this blunderbuss offering.

stroke here if you are aroused,

18th earl of Pembroke in dancing dwarf romp...possibly.

He's tall, he's handsome, he's worth a mountain of money, he's not a complete twat. But I bet he nevers gets black-bearded midgets dancing for him. Not without paying for them, which he probably does, in his cellar. The seedy lowlife.

I was an object of desire

I went out on the razzle-dazzle with a few charming folk on Friday night. We found an excellent little bar where I entertained the locals with some spectacular dancing - the better for my being drunk.

Without any preamble, I was nose-to-nose with a black-bearded, short man who was beaming brightly and thrashing like a cat chewing through a power cable. I understood him to be dancing.

The evening had been going well and I was in high spirits so I danced with our new friend. After a while I broke off and went to the toilet. Coming back, I saw black-beard standing with my group and I presumed he was pestering the ladies among the group. I cast shame aside and danced with the hot-blooded latin lothario to give the girls a break. He returned my chivalry by kissing me on the neck.

It was only then that I realised I had been the object of his amor. When I clarified my hetero status, he exclaimed "I see! I saw! I have seen!" and then went over to a friend of mine and shouted "I see! I saw! I have seen!" before walking off, a little embarrassed.

Apparently everyone else knew all along that this guy´s intentions towards me were not honorable. I think I need to get my gaydar recalibrated.

The Mighty Elephant

A mighty elephant is stomping through the jungle one day, in a foul mood, when a tiny armadillo waddles into his path.

"WHAT HAVE WE HERE?" bellows the elephant. "MR.ARMADILLO, YOU ARE VERY SMALL AREN´T YOU?"

"We´ll I´ve been ill," replies Mr Armadillo.

Washington, for the love of Big Animals

...and in other news this week, a Seattle man has died after having sex with a horse.

Click here and scroll to bottom story

A couple of points which raised an eyebrow:

1) He died of a perforated colon, which gives a surprising answer to the question, who was on top?
2) The horse was uninjured, thankfully
3) Sex with large animals is not illegal in Washington State, but pair up with only a wee beastie to make the beast-with-two-backs and you're going down.
4) So lovers of large animals should head to Washington State.

And it's goodnight from him.

Access to the netherworld just got easier!

In Newquay, in Cornwall, UK, just behind the bus station there is a care home for the elderly, called Roundabout Nursing Home. So named? Because it’s on a roundabout.

This is the same logic that leads you to number your children, which at least betrays an admirable lack of parental gooeyness. But naming an elderly care home after a non-descript roundabout is lack of imagination to the point of callousness.

They might as well name it after the graveyard next door (really): St John’s final rest, access to the netherworld just got easier! Even industrial estates are more imaginatively named. “It’s very practical” Yes, but it seems more heartless than plastic bedding. Poor devils.

Berserk we did go, verily.

On Thursday I paid good money (twenty-five euros, no less) to watch an elderly man roam about a stage wearing nothing but a pair of 1970s trainers and a nappy. That man was one of The Presidents. In fact, I thought he was George Clinton until another fully grown man ambled on stage in jeans and a striped polo shirt with coloured strips of paper decorating his hair. He didn't need to do an awful lot for the crowd to go berserk. And berserk we did go, verily. Bananas, barking, cock-a-hoop.

It was a spectacular concert.

In a quiet moment I mused on which outfits the chap in the nappy had dismissed earlier that evening. Jeans and t-shirt? Nah. Gold lame catsuit? I'm too old for that kind of caper. Fuck it, it's a warm night and I'm approaching incontinence, I'll wear the nappy.

I also wondered at the coincidence that way back in the 1970s this crazy loon call himself George Clinton and started a band called The Presidents and the past three US presidents have been George, Clinton and another George. Weird, no?

Please pray for this man...

The publicist for RnB chap, Omarion, issued a statement on Thursday, July 7, asking fans to pray for him because he had been in London when terrorists exploded four bombs in the city. According to Shana Gilmore, his publicist, "He wasn't hurt or anything, but just the fact that he was there and all that."

CLICK


Except that, according to Omarion, he has nothing to do with Shana Gilmore, or the company she works for.

STROKE

...and according to Shana Gilmore she has nothing to do with Omarion

RUB


which is all a bit fishy.

I felt very far from my friends and sister today

When terrorists bombed Madrid last year, I felt very close to my friends and folks back home in London. A lot of them called, texted, emailed to see if I was OK. Today, in diametrically opposite circumstances, I felt far away. I didn't hear from my sister until after lunchtime and my imagination had already begun to swoop and dive. I flickered between two websites and the radio news for most of the morning, trying to pick up information.

Later, I found myself wishing I had been there. That my friends had been through this weird day and I hadn't. It was a weird and selfish reaction but not one I'm ashamed of. Then, having spoken to and emailed a couple of them, I got the feeling that maybe it was more weird for me than for them. Maybe you take it in your stride when something shocking happens in your city - unless you are directly involved. I remember that about the Madrid bombings too - it really didn't affect me much on the day, other than to make me worry that I might be laid off. That was a selfish reaction that I am ashamed of.

Loathing Subsides...for the moment at least

I seethe for 10 minutes a day at the open thievery and despicable gouging of fear that is the insurance industry.

That was until I found this article about an insurance company which has offered triathletes insurance against a close encounter with the Loch Ness monster: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4651679.stm .

So bare is their face, so disarming their chutzpah, I have set aside my daily roil and instead doff my cap to their temerity.

Tomorrow I will hate them again.

Ode to Goonhavern

Down at the very tip of Cornwall,
far from London´s madding crowds,
there lies a sleepy sanctuary,
Goonhavern. A haven for Goons.

Far from the feck and the list,
of modern life,
fat bees waddle in the breeze,
and clay woodland fauna gather in gardens.

Garden gnomes become loyal friends,
suspicious shrubs cause a rumpus,
and Goons while away lazy afternoons,
swivelling their eyes and giggling.

Here the Goons have nothing to fear,
For they are in their haven.