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About Tina

Unleashed for a second term of blogging.

Why?

There are some things that make you ask the simple question, Why? The answer is probably not that easy to find though.

Frexample, why does Whoopi Goldberg have no eyebrows? I’ve never quite understood that. But why do we have eyebrows anyway? What purpose could they have served in humans as they evolved from walking fish? Just looking at some silverback gorillas on the telly, they have the furrowed brow, but they don’t look they’re hairy in the way that humans’ are.

So eyebrows are weird things. I’m particularly disturbed by:

  • Monobrows (Noel Gallagher, me circa 1986-2000). Ugly, ugly boys.
Noel & Liam
  • Black eyebrows, white hair (government minister Alistair Darling). Fucking ridiculous.
Alistair Darling
  • Shocking over-plucking. This is where the eyebrow is plucked to within a hair of its life, result in a constant look of surprise (me in about 2004).
mariah-carey-1

Black pepper, madam?
Why don’t they leave you a black pepper grinder on the table in Italian restaurants? I think the waiting staff enjoy the power of making diners wait for them to sidle along with a huge grinder – “Pepper, ladies?”. They then proceed to give you two twists of their knob, which approximates to about a nanogram of ground pepper, most of which misses the plate. They give you salt, they give you white pepper (which in many cases I prefer to black anyway), they give you flavoured olive oil, but not black pepper.

And while you’re at it, leave the grated parmesan.

Prego!

Little Con
I’m not one for plastering photos of babies on the interweb, but I couldn’t resist with this one:

Yay! I'm Little Con!!

A spot of bother

I seem to be suffering from teenage acne. Or bubonic plague. Whichever, my face has fallen victim to a number of huge, painful spots – none of which can be squeezed with any satisfaction, only more pain and redness.

Hey ho.

Daddy Sniff caused us a bit of anxiety on Monday afternoon when he was found collapsed and hardly breathing in the front garden. Assuming that he’d had a massive stroke (in the medical sense) or another heart attack, he was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. But he soon came to, to reveal lots of bruising and pain from the fall, but nothing else too serious. Phew.

Unfortunately, he is in a holding area in the hospital until they decide what to do with him. It’s like a transfer unit between casualty and the wards and it is temporary home to all sorts of folk. One particular chap wouldn’t let me talk to my dad in peace yesterday and kept talking to me during my brief visit. Apparently, he’d claimed to have taken an overdose – and immediately called an ambulance – just so he could get a few days in the mental health unit. Nice on. Why do some people have the social skills of a whelk? Why can’t they tell that people who are visiting their loved ones want to spend time with their loved ones and not some old fool in a baseball cap and high-vis fleece? I didn’t want to know about his numerous hip operations, or his history with the benefits system, or his trips to Bury, or his car being burnt out by vandals. I wanted to talk with my miserable dad, who himself wanted to lie in bed and mope.

I absolutely fucking hate visiting people in hospital, especially my uncommunicative dad. Hospital visiting has to be one of the most torturous things that we have to go through in this life of ours. You should just be able to go in, say “Hello, how are you? What’s going on? Is there anything you need?” and if the patient isn’t in the mood for talking, you should be able to leave swiftly and without guilt. On occasion however, when visiting with Big Connie, she feels compelled to sit with the patient for hours on, end even if there is no conversation, nothing to do, no way to help.

I hope they let him out today. I can’t face another visit like yesterday’s.

Bring me sunshine
As I left Manchester this morning, the sun was shining and the day promised to continue the recent trend for lovely spring weather. Twenty eight miles west along the motorway and I was met by greyness that got greyer as I reached my destination here at Base 2a.

I wonder if we’re going to get a nice summer at last.

If the doom merchants are correct and the world really is getting hotter, they might be able to build a super sun-catcher like the one in Seville here in the UK (probably not in Scotland though).

Mirrors

Solar station

This thing is like something straight out of science fiction! Essentially, you have a load of ground-level mirrors that reflect the sun’s rays up to a big solar cell at the top of a big tower. This then converts all the energy into ‘lectric for the local town.

Personally, I’d used the harnessed energy in a different way and convert it into a massive laser beam to blast things, like caravans and big-issue sellers.

Fantastic.

Imagine the sun tan you could get from the top of that tower! Unfortunately though, we all have to take care in the sun these days and I’d probably burn to a crisp within a millisecond. Then again, according to The Mysterious They (aka, miserable fucking killjoys) even the use of light-coloured, loose-fitting clothing, sunglasses and a hat aren’t enough to protect us against the oh-so-powerful northern English sunshine anymore. Apparently, we now need to wear dark-coloured, thick-woven fabric like denim, wool or polyester when the sun shines.

Are the people who suggest these sorts of things totally fucking insane? Have these eminent medical experts never heard of something called heat stroke? It could be part of a wider plot to introduce sharia law into the UK. “Cover up in the sun! Actually, have you seen these nice long gowns that Arab women wear? They’re nothing to do with misogynistic repression, oh no, it’s to protect Arab women from the sun – you should try it. And a head scarf and veil will protect your skin from wrinkles. Colour? Well, why have anything as cheery as colour when miserable black will do! If you all wear black, you can pretend to be ninjas! Why don’t men have to wear them too? Errm, well, because they’re just silly and they don’t care about getting skin cancer.”

Yeah right.

Then again, we all know how a bit of sunshine brings out some of the most horrible assaults on our eyes. There’s nothing more like to put you off getting your own body out than a larger lady (or gent) in a revealing (or no) top, displaying the signs of sunburn and white strap marks. Fuckin’ delish!

Asylum seekers

The north of England is no longer a safe haven for its indigenous population. For a number of years, southern asylum seekers have been migrating here to escape the ludicrous house prices and general nastiness of their origins. As a result, pockets of Manchester are now infiltrated with nasty southerners who have forced house prices up and infiltrated the populace with their Guardian-reading, lefty attitudes.

Me and Trump sometimes frequent a cafe on the high-street that offers a corking full English or Irish breakfast, along with other stuff that’s a lot healthier, but doesn’t prepare you for a trip to B&Q and Ikea. We went there yesterday to find that we could hardly get in for a number of huge baby buggies parked in the doorway: a group of young mothers had colonised one of the tables and were enjoying a breakfast morning. Nobody else was enjoying their breakfast morning through the random squeals of their infants and the droning rubbish coming from the mouths of the southern earth mothers. “Oh, it’s so wonderful up here; I love Chorlton, but THIS part of Manchester is great. There’s such a wonderful mix of social class and ethnic background – it’s so rich! And the housing is wonderfully cheap. We’re thinking of buying a third to let out to students.” How they found the time to eat their veggie breakfasts while talking so much is beyond me.

A man in his fifties ate his lunch in solitude at the table next to the brood. Most of the group had drifted off and as the final two forced their massive buggies through the chair and table legs and people’s feet, the man stopped them. “Would you ever consider going to one of those baby screamer sessions at the cinema?”

Her: “Oh yah, I used to go to one at the Ritzy in London with my first, it was fantastic. We could all relax and watch a film while the little ones just screamed – and nobody cared.”

Him: “Is there anything like that in Manchester?”

Her: “I think there’s something way out in Salford, but I wouldn’t go THERE!”

The conversation continued and it turned out that the bloke was thinking of trying to set something up where women (and I assume men too) could take their babies to the cinema and watch the film with screaming toddler without worrying about disturbing other people.

What a load of fucking crap. If you want to watch a film, you’re going to be so annoyed if somebody else’s kids are screaming away and they’re getting up and down to change nappies. It’s just another excuse for parents to take over places where normal people could once escape from them. You can imagine them taking over cinema foyers with their stupid three wheeler buggies and then taking over the cafe afterwards.

Why can’t they just stay at home and look after their kids without inflicting them on everybody else? For fuck’s sake. NOBODY WANTS TO BE AROUND YOU AND YOUR OFFSPRING! If they did, they’d go to visit you, or you’d be invited around to their house. You get in everyone’s way, expect special treatment and you piss people off when your baby doesn’t stop screaming. Just organise a coffee morning like parents used to do, you selfish twats.

A richness in social class
These are the sort of people who live in areas that are sheltered from the realities that the rest of us endure. The “richness in social class” that they refer to are what we call “fucking scumbags” who make peoples’ lives a misery. I’m sure they’d welcome the richness in social class tearing up and down the streets around their houses on mini scooters for hours on end during the summer. They’d love to meet the richness in social class in their local kebab shop and strike up a conversation with them about the latest trends for wearing sports pants just below the buttocks with the legs tucked into socks.

And they allow these people to vote.

And breed.

All hope is gone, bring on the revolution.

Memmmmmreeeeeeeeeeeze

Light the corners of my mind…

Only they don’t. I’m becoming increasingly furious with my inability to remember things. My short term memory is reliant on notes and electronic gadgets. Remember… Sammy Jenkiss was it? You know, that film about that bloke who had no short term memory so he had to take polaroid photos of things and people so he knew he’d seen or met them. Memorabilia… (good tunah) or something.

Anyway, as I sat watching reruns of Frasier earlier, something came to mind that I was going to have a look for on the internet. Was is something to buy, some information I was looking for? I can’t remember. I’d forgotten by the time I’d found a piece of paper to write it down on.

Am I going bonkers? Is it CJD, or is it laziness, as I don’t need to use my brain that much anymore.

Or is it just that it wasn’t important enough to remember?

Flatpack fiasco
Check out Trump’s account of the huge flatpack set of tumbling dominoes that came from Habitat.

One lump or two?
I understand that eco warrior Sheryl Crowe has suggested that we should only be allowed to use one sheet of toilet paper to wipe up after a wee and maybe two after a poo.

Stupid cunt. She may not mind going about stinking of piss and poo because of her inadequately-wiped nether regions, but I’d rather stay as clean as possible between bum washes, thankyouverymuch.

So here’s a question for you all, half of it probably won’t apply to blokes:

How many sheets of toilet paper do you use to clean up after:

A) A wee, or
B) A poo, or
C) Both?

And do you fold or scrunch?

Where in the world?

Where in the world could you be subjected to aural torture, incompetence and frustration for over an hour, when you’re actually wanting to spend about £700?

Where in the world?

PC FUCKING WORLD, that’s where. Bunch of shits.

Trump has been after a new laptop and had spotted a rather nifty model when we’d nipped in to PC World a couple of weeks ago. On that occasion, we’d been hounded by the spotty staff more than once as we browsed. “No, we’re just looking thanks”.

“Nice laptop, we’ll look online and see if it’s cheaper anywhere.”

We did, and it was. But you couldn’t actually buy it online, you had to reserve it, then go and pick it up. The logic of this defies all reason, but hey ho, there you go.

So on Saturday, we went to PC World, Pin Hill, Manchester, clutching the piece of paper that said we’d reserved the laptop for pickup online.

As we entered the store, we were met with the most horrendous noise as the super wide screen TV and surround sound system that was playing Shrek at full blast – a gang of monged-out toddlers staring hypnotically at the screen. Walking through the store, it became apparent that everything that made a noise was turned on full blast. Very pleasant.

We looked for somebody to help out, there wasn’t anybody. A PC World store on a Saturday afternoon and no spotty geeks to help? What the hell was going on? We were told by somebody wearing a jacket (duty manager?) that he’d get somebody to help. Nobody came, the noise from the TVs, PCs, tannoys were all unbearable. Tempers were getting frayed as more people queued up for help.

An angry mob was gathering… in my head.

Where the fuck was everyone?

After an hour, the jacketed man finished dealing with the bloke who he’d helped pay for something after trying four credit cards and a finance deal. “Has nobody come to help?”

“Err, no” Actually, we like standing here getting increasingly annoyed while being offended by all the fucking noise in here, so we’re just hanging out.

“I’ll go and get somebody”.

He arrived, as did a number of other youths who must’ve been in the staff room, surfing porn.

“We’ve reserved one of these and would like to buy one please” Trump showed him the paper.

“Errm, there’s no reference number on here, we need a reference number. Have you already paid for it online?”

“No, it won’t let you pay for it or order it online, you can only reserve it and come and collect it.”

“Well, we can’t give you the online price without the reference number. This banner advert has printed over it.”

“So you’re telling us that the advert from your site has printed over the reference number?”

“It appears to have done that yes.”

“Well, let us on the internet here and we’ll get another reference number.”

“We can’t do that.”

“But you must have a PC with internet access here?”

“We can’t do that, you’ll have to go and print it out to get the reference number and come back.”

“I don’t think so”

I turned on my heel and walked out.

Here are some suggestions for PC World:

  • Don’t have exclusive online offers unless you’re going to let people actually BUY things online
  • Don’t have banners ads that cover the oh-so-important reference number when you print the bloody page
  • Turn off all the sodding TVs in your shops. In fact, you’re a PC shop, sell PCs not tellies, arseholes
  • Train your staff to come and help people when they need it, and not hassle them when they’re just browsing

Makes my blood boil.

Tossers.

Tomorrow: Flatpack fun and frolics with Habitat.

Chase you with a ladle

I’m not sure how you spell ladle ; that doesn’t look right some how.

looshnbird

Ok, so it’s a hockey stick and not a ladle, but the image sums up the out of control cat from the Bear comics. I have an out of control cat on my lap right now. Otto does a very good impression of a pyjama case…

…as does my arse. But soon enough I shall be back into my fit, fit, FIT ways as I start exercising again. I have no excuse either since I’ve just discovered that I can transfer my gym membership to the one near Chez Trump. Oh lordy, the accounts of pain I shall be recounting here.

Little Con
She is five weeks old today. She doesn’t half whinge alot. I think my sister’s breast milk is poisonous and they are cries for help. “Please give me a bottle, my Mum’s boob is toxic!!!”

I’m sure she must be ready to try her first Pot Noodle.

Off
I’m off work for a week from tomorrow. Yay! Activities will include:

  • Waiting in for a delivery
  • Going up to Barrow
  • Coming back from Barrow
  • Stripping Trump’s bathroom
  • Getting some repairs done on the car
  • Watching somebody do some decorating at Trump’s
  • Eating vast amounts of chick pea curry at the Nawab Indian buffet
  • Moving stuff into Trump’s so I can officially become a kept woman

I’m not sure she knows about me being a kept woman, but she’ll get used to it.

A match made in hell

Tesco and Esso
Why on earth did Esso hand over the franchise for its petrol stations to Tesco? Instead of having a filling station that has eight to ten pumps, with a little shop that sells fags, chocolates and magazines at high prices, we now have these useless fucking things with three fuel pumps attached to a Tesco express.

Picture the scene:

  • Sniffy leaves for work at 7.20 and realises that she’ll have to get petrol in order to get to work. She curses the relies who were visiting the previous evening, who had blocked her car on the drive and who didn’t leave until 12.30.
  • She drives to the Tesco/Esso filling station on the top road. There’s a queue of cars trying to get to the three pumps while avoiding people parking to go in to do their weekly shop, and the delivery truck that’s blocking half the forecourt.
  • Eventually a pump comes free as somebody moves the car they’ve parked there while doing their shop.
  • She puts £10 worth of unleaded in the tank and runs in to pay.
  • Two tills are open and there’s a queue, she stands, tenner in hand, hopeful of a quick payment.
  • As she stands next in line for a till, one checkout assistant leaves his till, leaving Sniffy to wait behind somebody who is getting their weekly shop.
  • FUCKERS!
  • Sniffy finally gets to the till, says “Number 1!” and thrusts tenner into the hand of the assistant.
  • Turning on her heel, Sniffy is stuck behind Mr Weekly shop as he stands to check his receipt in front of her.

For fuck’s sake. Why can’t they have a “fuel sales only” till in these places? Or better still, why can’t we go back to the days when petrol stations sold fuel, fags, chocolates and mags?

I feel shame for being rude to the assistant who served me, but anger at Tesco for making me feel this way.

And they don’t accept Clubcard on petrol sales.

Cunts.

Comments
Since I am currently incarcerated in Base 2a and I can’t access Blogger to comment or post, I am unable to answer comments made about my previous post other than here in an “e-mail” post. So here we go:

Tazzy and Piggy, yes, it was the Spinners who sang The ink is black, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself by admitting that I knew this. What a great song to instil the values of equality and symbiosis in the minds of youngsters who would not encounter a black or ethnic minority person until they were at least 11. Please add it to the T&P playlist, it’ll be a hit. I might drive through BNP stronghold areas and play it really loudly through my car stereo, or tannoy.

Loz – we had plenty of hymns that we sang, both traditional and modern hippy ones, but our favourites were still singing along to Peter Paul and Mary and the Spinners and the New Seekers. But it was strange how, when I was listening to Go tell it on the mountain last night, that my sister said it reminded her of our primary school. There was another song with the lines “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, let my people go” – or perhaps I’m getting a few songs mixed up. Another one mentioned “So high you can’t get over it, so low, you can’t get under it”, but I can’t remember the rest. Perhaps it was actually a curse upon the size of my arse for years to come. Who knows?

Piggy, yes, I am looking a little fatter around the chops and everywhere else. I need to get back to the gym, which I haven’t really attended for some time. It will happen once my life is a little more settled. Cunt.

Piggy again. I have no idea what the fuck happened to my eyebrows in that photo, but I don’t think they looked like that in real life. I’m hoping it’s a trick of the angle. I’ll just go and check… if you saw them closer, you’d notice that the hairs on my right eyebrow stick up at the end near my nose and this gives the impression that the eyebrow is thinner than the left one. There are the same numbers of hairs there, they just go in a different direction.

Piggy again. You’re a total shit

Mass shootings
While the events at Virginia Tech were horrific, I found it odd that state leaders rushed to send out messages of support and sympathy, where none are becoming when folk get massacred in their hundreds every day because of the mess that has been made in Iraq.

Scotch eggs
Are scotch eggs the work of the devil? Having just eaten TWO for my lunch, I feel the need flagellate myself before a life-sized image of Nigella Lawson to absolve myself of this terrible sin. Perhaps I have the urge to do this anyway.

Scotch eggs are dirty food – food that you really shouldn’t touch with the longest of bargepoles for the sake of all that is good – but dirty food is so very necessary at times. Other dirty food includes:

  • Gala pie
  • Sausages
  • Bacon barm
  • Steak and kidney pudding
  • Pot Noodle
  • Kebab
  • Fried bread

Fried bread is fuckin’ delish. Not had it for ages. Want some now.

Do people ever have cravings for things like apples or muesli? Do they bollocks.

Anyhoo, I’m going to hit send and see if this appears on my blog.

If I had a hammer

I’d most likely use it on somebody’s skull.

But apart from that, for some reason, I’ve been having flashbacks to my childhood; to the uncomplicated days of the early seventies, where in primary school they made us sing along to the timeless classics of Peter, Paul and Mary.

To much concern from Trump, I downloaded the wonderful tunes If I had a hammer and Go tell it on the mountain followed by I’d like to teach the world to sing from the New Seekers, or Seekers – whoever.

These were the songs that we sand along to when we were nippers, along with The ink is black from fuck knows who. All good, wholesome stuff for impressionable four year olds.

I wonder what went wrong with me.

I wonder how many people would take out their colleagues or collegemates with automatic weapons if guns were readily available in the UK.

Wi-Fi theft
A couple of people have been successfully prosecuted after stealing people’s wireless internet connections. One culprit aroused suspicion by sitting in his car outside a house and covering his windows with cardboard while he surfed away. Remind you of anything?

But what a nob, fancy doing it in open view of everyone rather than from behind closed doors (like the rest of us do).

And people who don’t enable security on their wireless networks deserve to have people piggybacking them and stealing their bandwidth.

Stupid fucktards.

Full house
There’s a full house here at Chez Sniffy tonight. I can’t cope. I am hiding in the little room (study/spare bedroom, not toilet) to escape. Both of my cameras are drawing much attention from gadget loving rellies. I love it when people covet my ox, especially people with a penchant for one-upmanship. Although it does run the risk of me having to talk to people when I’m not feeling particularly communicative.

Hey ho.

Hair bear update
Despite having a pathological hatred and fear of hairdressers, I let my hormonal and tired sister cut my hair the other day. Here are the before and after shots.

Oh, I haven’t got any before shots because we only take photos of newborn babies these days, but here’s the after:

Hair bear
Hairdressers? Pfhah!

This is a test

After the timely reminder from Convict, I thought I’d try posting to my blog via e-mail. Last time I tried this, it took 3 days for anything to appear.

Ha! Success in abundance!!!! Those fuckers in the NHS tried to stop me, but Blogger shall prevail in the hearts and minds of the bored millions as they watch the office clocks and count down their dismal lives in terms of home times and pay days.