With more drama and bloodshed than a thousand episodes of Deal or no deal, I took on the gruesome twosome in the shed. Accompanied by the radio and a stray cat, and decked out in the clothes of a North Sea fisherman, I put my squeamishness to one side and began plucking the beasties that had been hidden away from sight and mind since the middle of the week.

Fuck, what a nightmare. With their limp little bodies flopping about, it was so difficult to figure out what was what in the sea of feathers that ensued. And they smelled horrible, and then I had to get their insides out.

And then you saw me dead.

They’re in the oven now. Pheasants aren’t even that easy to cook; they can be tough; they can taste strong (i.e. bad). But I suppose if the poor little bastards have gone through death-by-angry-boss, the least I can do is honour them by cooking them and eating them. And at least they didn’t disgrace themselves by getting run over like most of their brethren do. Stupid fucking animals.

Push the button
I’ve ordered tickets for the Sugababes’ concert in Manchester in the spring. I saw them when they supported Take That in the summer and they were top notch, so I figured they’d be worth a go.

My desire to experience or live music was fuelled after seeing The Roots (yes, hip hop/funk/soul) on Friday. They were fucking top notchamundo.

Christmas wrapped up
I’ve got loads of Christmas presents to wrap up. I don’t know how I manage it, but every year, I manage to get something that’s impossible to wrap. This year’s “what the fuck have you got one of those for, you know you can’t wrap them!” item is a football.

Tit.

There are some things that make you despair. As we’re bedding down into the 21st century, it amazes me how savage some people are – people in so-called civilised nations, nations with aspirations to join the EU. That nation is Turkey:

“A job well done is worth celebrating, but Turkish Airlines say staff went too far when they sacrificed a camel.

To mark the last delivery of 100 aircraft, maintenance workers clubbed together to buy the beast – and then consume it.

The sacrifice took place at Istanbul international airport… read on…“

Shocked and appalled. Fucking pigs.

A pheasant plucker
Then again, I accepted a gift of a brace of pheasants from my boss at work today. I think he’d gone out on a killing spree with his shot gun after we got some bad news at the end of last week. Of course, the birds in question are in need of plucking, gutting and the rest – after a week or so being hung. They’ll be pretty ripe and it won’t be a pretty sight. What was fun to watch was Mother’s reaction when I asked her to look in the bag that they were in – I never knew people could jump that high at her age.

I also like it when Otto gets hold of the tail and runs through our scumbag neighbour’s garden with it in his mouth. I’m also tempted to nail the heads to the top of the fence as an act of revenge against them and the way they constantly look over into our garden in the summer.

Cunts.

Moonlighting
After a break of about 8 months, I’ve been asked to do a bit more moonlighting work at a place that funded: a snazzy digital camera; a pushbike; holiday to Rome; holiday in Canada. Did I say yes? Too fucking right, I’m skint! The last two nights have gone some way into funding half of Trump’s Christmas presents. She should be paid off by next Tuesday with any luck.

Secret Satan
I have to buy a Secret Santa present for the maddest person in the world. Yes, I picked Cynthia out of the hat in our not-so secret Santa draw. I’ve no idea why they have it so we all know who’s buying for whom. It’s just another mechanism of inflicting torture on us all. But what do you buy somebody who is eccentric to the point of being insane? Somebody with the oddest sense of humour on the planet? As far as I’m aware, she only eats herrings, yoghurt and dried crackers, so a box of Thornton’s chocs would probably be lost on her. She’s really into history and travel and gardening, but there’s no point in buying her books because she knows it all already, or talks like she does.

I might just get her a t-shirt emblazoned with: “You don’t have to be mad to work here… I’m bonkers enough for everyone!”

At least I’m getting out of the Christmas “party” this year. Thank fuck for that.

I would like to start a bed protest to highlight the government-sponsored torture of its subjects by its insistence on making the majority of us go to work so they can bleed us dry by taxing our earnings, savings, purchases, inheritance, homes, utilities – anything. Otto is protesting about lack of support for partially-sighted 5 year old cats (called Otto). He wants a “Guide cat” to a) be his right eye, and b) play with, since all the other cats just beat him up all the time.

Who am I kidding? I’m not one for political protest or mass demonstration, I’m just knackered and I want a couple of weeks off to sit around and do sod all. Instead, it seems the run up to the Christmas break is going to be hectic: Christmas wrapping today; Christmas decorations to put up; London with work tomorrow; taking on evening work as a favour to an old colleague; Christmas shopping yet to do; Christmas cake to ice! Plus other shite at work where people decide to have a deadline of “We must get this out before Christmas!” – I don’t understand why, most people are just watching the calendar, waiting for breaking up day; they don’t generally give a crap about work at the moment.

Anyhow, my bed protest will probably end when I need my third cup of coffee.

I’m actually in my own bed this morning, having been dumped by Trump so she can spend the day gallivanting around Manchester with her mother. It’s the first time I’ve slept in my own bed on a Saturday night since March. It feels a bit weird, not having to get up and rush around to go to work, the relative quietness outside.

I say “quietness”, this is of course disturbed by the constant jingle-jangle from a ridiculous number of wind chimes that my idiot neighbours have strung up about their gardens. It’d be so much nicer to hear the sound of their strung up bodies as they knock against a tree trunk. Cunts.

Please, somebody please explain wind chimes to me?? Surely they just cause a disturbance to everybody, including the fucking idiots who put them up. I’ve been to cemeteries where families of the deceased have attached these things to grave stones; this is so inconsiderate and extreme bad taste. They’re just tacky and nasty and very common. But I guess that sums up lots of people.

Harebrained
I love the BBC News website’s Have Your Say. They suggest a topic for discussion from one of the latest news items, and they let people discuss it in an online forum. There are general rules about submissions and some discussions are moderated so that comments can’t appear until they’ve been passed by a moderator. You can guarantee that some outraged contributors will complain about the “Government’s latest hairbrained scheme”, and this always gets my goat – I always thought it was “harebrained”, as in like a nutcase hare. I’ve just had a look at one online dictionary and it says that the “hairbrained” spelling is a Scottish variant that means “a brain the size of a hair” – well, that makes complete sense! Why not just have “pissed out of head-brained”, that’d probably be more fitting to the Scots.

Bunny abuse
Apparently, rabbits are the most abused pets in the UK, with many tending to be neglected or even just let go once the novelty of having them has worn off. This is a real shame, but having seen a few pet rabbits, I can understand how easy it is to forget about them. I don’t understand the concept of pets that you keep in a hutch. If you’re going to have a pet, get one that roams about the house and does things other than looking at you sideways while twitching all the time.

Come forward, mystery Manc reader
I tend to have a look a my site stats quite regularly and, for the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that I’ve been visited a LOT by a reader who I think is in Manchester. I wish they’d leave me a comment or drop me an e-mail, I’m intrigued to know who they are.

There were two women at the entrance to Tesco just now. Both were wearing bright yellow bibs, one carried a charity collection can, the other held the lead of a black labrador dog. “Please help Guide dogs for the blind”, their bibs (and the dog) said it all really.

Having done some shopping (more later), I acquired some change so that I would have an excuse to get closer to the dog. Having made my donation, I felt justified in molesting Gypsy – she was so soft! I really want a labrador so badly, being near them is almost like torture. I said to the charity worker “You should charge people £2 a stroke”.

“Well, I do,” she replied, “and when they’ve finished, I let them pat the dog”.

But these dogs, guide dogs, not only provide companionship, they also work for their Pedigree Chum and go through rigorous training to get them to the stage where they can provide invaluable assistance. They are amazing, and a lifeline for those who might otherwise be unable to live independently. Knowing this, as everybody does, what would possess somebody to kick a guide dog in the street while it was with its elderly blind owner?

I hate people, really, really hate them. The little shit who did that should be kicked about himself.

Sad
I’m a bit down in the dumps at the moment. I attended another funeral yesterday, this was of Minnie Souch an old lady who lived as our neighbour when we were growing up. We never had grandparents and she was sort of a surrogate, she was utterly lovely and I never heard her say a bit thing about anybody. Some old people get cantankerous and bad tempered, Minnie just smiled through things. Despite losing her sight over the last 15 years of her life, she just tried to adjust and adapt and get on with things, making the most of everything she did have.

Multicultural Britain
People (mushy-brained lefty politicians) say we should celebrate Britain’s multiculturalism. Unfortunately, we’re not a multicultural nation; we have pockets of high populations of particular ethnicities that never mix with the others.

Today, I am in an almost totally white part of the country and the thing that indicates that we’re not a true multicultural nation is the fact that, apart from there only being white faces on show (dirty ones at that), you can’t get chapatis in the Tesco here. How rubbish is that?

And THIS report isn’t going to do much for calming tensions that exist between India and Pakistan. Apparently, on average, Indian blokes have smaller (shorter) willies than other men. This is REALLY bad when it comes to trying to persuade Indian blokes to wear condoms for preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STIs (and babies of course) because they don’t fit properly. Although I’m sure a survey of the partners of Indian men would reveal complete satisfaction in the whatsit department.

Different sized condoms are now being manufactured for the Indian market.

Can you imagine the damage this research can do to an entire nation’s pride? Especially when you consider the fierce rivalry between India and Pakistan.

Orange nets
I hate those net bags that oranges and other citrus fruits come in. People tell me they’re supposed to just tear open, but every time I try this, I almost get my fingers severed by the industrial strength plastic threads.

And I’ve just discovered that mandarin oranges are only nice in jelly.

I love satellite navigation systems. I think it’s great the way drivers have these little things stuck to their dashboards so they have something to look at, rather than the road and the vehicles, pedestrians and other road users around them. I really can’t understand why people need these things for going to and from work, or to go down the shops, or at all. We have maps, routefinders, common sense, road signs.

The emergency services are using them these days. Imagine my surprise to hear of this incident on Friday. Yes, an ambulance transferring a patient somewhere in London, ended up 200 miles out of their way in Manchester because they relied solely on their sat nav, rather than bothering to look at the road, road signs, a map, or use their common sense.

I don’t think the blame lies with the technology, the blame lies squarely with the idiot ambulance crew. If I was their boss, I’d sack them for being so supremely thick that they’re a danger to themselves, their patients and other members of the public.

And then I’d have their houses burnt down.

Thick twats.

The dried fruit is soaking…
And this can only mean one thing. Tomorrow, I make my Christmas cake… under close, and somewhat irritating, supervision from Connie. She won’t let me just get on with it. It’s not as if I didn’t spend over half of my life working in a lab and following recipes. Oh no, Connie has to interfere.

She’s already told me that I’ve used too much brandy to soak the fruit in “It’s going to be far too heavy”. I don’t give a shit. I’m not allowed to drink and the only way I can legitimately have any booze is by spiking my Christmas cake with as much of the stuff as is humanly possible.

I will, as ever, post a diary of my Christmas cake here on this very blog. How very exciting for everybody.

Mother ruins
Mum always looks on the negative side of things. I tend not to notice too much anymore, but it is an odd trait of hers. I love her dearly, but she doesn’t have piss me off at times. I thought she would be pleased at the £7 Christmas pud that I just bought from Tesco, but no, “Let’s have a look. Oh, it’s that one that looks like it’s got really big pieces of fruit in it. Aldi’s is best”.

Grrr.

One of the digital radio stations (BBC6) is running a poll to find the top 100 singles of 2006. It’s simple for me: Shapeshifters’ Incredible. It’s not the best song ever written, but it’s fuckin’ ace and it’s my number one for this year. So I went to their website to vote and was disappointed to see that I have to choose FIVE singles to vote.

I can’t think of 5 records that came out this year. Load of rubbish.

Pan’s Labyrinth
This is a pretty scary fantasy horror that’s set in the backdrop of the last days of the Spanish Civil War. A fairytale-obsessed little girl, Ofelia, moves with her mother to be with her new stepfather – a vicious cunt of a general/commander/el big cheesio in Franco’s army. The army command post is near an ancient and mystical labyrinth where Ofelia is guided by a fairy to a scary faun who gives her three tasks that will enable her to retake her rightful position as princess in the underworld kingdom.

Scary monsters, scarier men. Definitely worth a watch.

Nice weather
The weather is fucking hideous – bloody tornadoes and torrential rain. I was surprised to get a text message from Connie, telling me that she was going to the seaside to have a look at these today:

I replied asking if she was mad and had she not heard the hurricane and apocalyptic weather during the night – “Haven’t you seen the forecast??”

I got a phonecall from her telling me that they’d almost got to the end of the path to the beach, but had been beaten back by swirling winds that was blinding them and whipping up sand. Surprising that.

I only went outdoors to get to and from my car on the journey back from Trump’s. Call me nesh, I call it survival instinct.

Bearing in mind that my folks are retired, what do you think possessed them to go into Manchester to experience the Christmas Markets on a Saturday afternoon? “They were very nice, but ever so crowded”. Surprising that, Mother.

On a festive note
OK, latest festive pics. No sign of our decs going up yet, but I might make my cake this week.

I’ve no idea how old I was when this photo of me and Bomb was taken with the scariest Father Christmas EVER! You can see the fear in our eyes (and the malevolence in his), I was struggling to get away from the sinister old bastard in Kendal’s Christmas Grotto.

Just a couple of shots from the Christmas market again. Oh those lights in the trees are so lovely!

Me and Trump are probably getting her tree next week. Can’t wait. What I CAN wait for is having to go into my own loft to retrieve our own decs. Fucking spiders don’t care about the festive season; they’ll scare the shit out of you all year round for the fun of it, the eight-legged cunting terrorists.

Don’t forget people, try to think about AIDS and how it affect so many people all over the world. Make a donation if you can.

I’d like to mention the George House Trust in the North West of England, go and check out other charities that help people living with HIV AIDS near where you are.

Oh, and as promised:

We also found something very special at the markets, which we thought explained Piggy’s recent lack of blogging:

Alas, it turned out not to be him as he is now back online after a few techinical difficulties.

UK readers, petition our shite government
Our shite government wants to introduce a pay as you drive road pricing tax (another tax) to “ease congestion”. We already pay as we drive in that 85% of the cost of fuel is on tax (the more you drive, the more tax you pay – you use more fuel if you drive when the roads are congested), we also pay annual road tax and motoring insurance tax.

The new scheme will mean all cars will have a black box fitted to them that talks to yet another overpriced spying system to track where and when you drive. So not only is this yet another unfair tax on the motorist, it is also a gross invasion of privacy.

You can petition the government at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/sign. Well you should be able to, only they can’t process signatures as the site is “extremely busy” at the moment. What a surprise. A prime example of democracy in Britain today.

Democracy doesn’t work. Let’s have a revolution.

My sister Bomb bought Mum and Dad tickets to the opera for tonight’s performance of the beautiful Madama Butterfly at the Manchester Opera House.

“I’ll be working till late and they need to get there for about 7.15, can you take them?”

Of course! No problem, it’ll be a pleasure.

But I do wish my sister Bomb would check the local events calendar when she books these things. The combination of an opera, a Premiership football match and a “rock” concert starting at approximately the same time, within a 3 mile radius leads to:

So our relaxed journey into the city was somewhat fraught as I fought my way through the traffic. The opera is very civilised you see, they don’t let you in if the performance has started and you should ideally be in your seat a few minutes before the screaming starts.

I’ve just had an interval report from Connie. Apparently they were a bit late afterall – the tickets were misleading and said you should be there for 7.15 for a 7.50 start. It actually started at 7.15. No idea what that was all about.

Technoldies
They should know better than to put confusing information on tickets that are predominantly going to be used by older people.

There are so many things that can cause confusion for people who are getting on a bit – let’s face it, it’s bad enough for us thirty somethings. I came home to find Mum cursing at an automated telephone system. She’d received a new credit card and was trying to activate using the oh-so-unhelpful “Press one to activate your card, key in the card number using your telephone keypad, key in your date of birth” shite. It wasn’t working and there was no way to get through to a real person for assistance.

But that’s Lloyds TSB for you. My new Marks & Spencer card arrived, I phoned up, got through to a real person immediately (on about 2 rings) and my card was activated within 30 seconds.

I “heart” M&S. I REALLY “heart” their Christmas TV ads.

UN Disaster zone
My hair is a fucking mess. The Disasters Emergencies Commission has set up a fund for people to donate to so that Sniffy can get a hair cut.

Big, fuck-off building
Somebody was questioning me when I was going on about the Beetham Tower in Manchester. Here are a few photos that might indicate how big this thing is.

So there you have it. That’s Beetham Tower for you. I wouldn’t mind spending a night in one of the Hilton Hotel suites, it looks a bit posh.

As I stumbled from the bed I’d shared with Trump, heading bleary-eyed into a dark Monday morning, I was taken by surprise: an involuntary fart left my person before I’d taken more than three aching steps. I was instantly hit with a funk so strong, so evil, that it must have come from the bowels of hell itself. Within seconds, the dozing Trump fell victim to the gases that had permeated the atmosphere and expelled the sweet, fresh air.

“You dirty bitch!”

Actually, she might not have said that; unable as she was to move or cry for help in her paralysed state.

But the strange thing is that I’ve been doing horrendous farts for the past couple of days, yet my number twos have been almost odourless.

Explain that, Lord Winston!

It’s getting me down a bit now, but still providing plenty of amusement as I leave a little bit of myself wherever I go.

Time won’t give me time
My mobile phone has gone weird. People’s text messages are recorded as arriving an hour later than they were. Rubbish! Although I’m sure I could use this to my advantage if I need an alibi for something.

Some more views of the city
I was preserving these photos for somewhere else, but what the hell! I’ve been having such a nice time wandering around the city with Trump and my camera, it’s nice to share it with folk.

The fountain, Albert Square

This is the Town Hall in Albert Square. We’ve had an inflatable Father Christmas for over twenty years. The original one used to climb the clock tower, but burst every year as it got punctured on spiky brickwork. This is the last year that Manchester will be visited by our inflatable Father Christmas. It’s a great shame.

The second photo shows that Father Christmas is holding the Space Shuttle – no idea why. It’s also nice to note how easily the 2005 was changed to 2006. I’ve seen this somewhere before…

Here we have a couple of different views of Manchester’s Central Library – the top one shows some of the arc of the wall that borders Library Walk. The Central Library is ace and I used to spend a fair bit of time in there, looking up old newspaper editions on microfiche when I was a sixthformer.

And this is the G-Mex Centre. It used to be Manchester’s Central railway station, but it stood unused for years before being turned into a big exhibition centre. The big thing in the background is Beetham Tower. It is HUGE, with the Hilton Hotel occupying lower floors and private apartments on the top third. The tower dominates the skyline and it is in such a position that it occupies a central point for most of the major roads into the town. If you ever come into land in Manchester airport, look out for it – it sticks out a mile.

So that’s another photojournal of my days out in my city (well it’s not mine, but my city – Salford -is totally shite with only a concrete shopping precinct and run-down bus station to boast at its heart).

Next in the Sniffy does the City: HOT SAUSAGE! Sniffy’s adventures on the Christmas markets.

WordPress is one of those blogging tools that people go on about being the dog’s bollocks. I like Blogger: it’s easy, customisable, generally very reliable. The new Blogger Beta is even snazzier in that you can sign in to your blog from the page itself and from here you can change the template and stuff without having to do html things. It looks good and one of my blogs has already switched over to Blogger in beta.

However, not being one to dismiss things without trying them, I’ve taken advantage of the resources offered by Taz and Pig and I’ve set up a blog over on their server – FOC, they’re so benevolent for a pair of vicious little queers. They use WordPress for their blog utility and this has a snazzy tool whereby you can import another blog in its entirety. So that’s what I did, I imported all of Cakesniffers over to “Click next when ready”. And it fucked up my formatting back here in Blogger.

Cunting shite.

But I’m impressed that I can do this and have the option to perhaps switch over to the Taz and Pig site… perhaps, maybe, one day – no more popups if I get myself a new Url.

Click next when ready? Well, when I was setting up the T&P blog I clicked next before I was ready and the blog was initially called “Sni”.

Advent calendars
Friday is 1st of December and this equals day number one for those eager to get stuck in to their Advent calendars in the countdown to Christmas. Most advent calendars have little doorways that open on to a picture that is obscured for a nanosecond by a small chocolate that rapidly finds its way into the mouth of a small child or excited Trump.

But I’ve been thinking about Advent calendars; it’d be brilliant if they could do savoury snack ones where each door reveals a speciality salami, cheese, salty snack or pickle. That would be an advent calendar worth having!

Radioactive like sushi
What about the UK being witness to a spy drama straight out of the Cold War? How fantastic is it that assassins would go to the trouble of killing somebody with polonium-spiked raw fish rather than just putting a bullet in the back of their head? It’s so exciting!

Of course, by fantastic, I mean out of the ordinary and totally mindblowing, rather than really good. This is the sort of thing we want the security services investigating, not your pathetically unoriginal islamic so-called plots to just blow up buses, planes and trains – this is real espionage. Pol-fucking-onium! Brilliant! Bring it on!

Essentially though, the Russians can get away with anything because they supply all our gas and oil – fall out with them and we’re much more fucked than when we faced the threat of nuclear war.