Filth!

Anyway, what’s been going on? Oh, the usual… it’s getting freezing-my-tits-off cold now. And it’s dark to match as we descend into the depths of winter. Bums.

Trump may have found a buyer for her house. This would be amazing and great, but I’m not counting chickens.

I’ve forgotten how to type.

I’m trying to remember what I was going to blog about, but Trump is playing maniacally on her Nintendo DS. It sounds like a Super Mario game. I like the way she does the sound effects. I have convinced myself that it’s endearing.

She sometimes plays on her DS at bedtime, this isn’t nearly as irritating having to listen to BBC Radio 4, which I despise. It’s politics 90% of the time. People droning on and on and on. It’s maddening. Last night it wasn’t politics, it was some woman with the poshest voice ever talking about one thing after another, seemingly without paragraphs; cooking, travel, knitting all sorts of things in a plum in her mouth monotone.

And then the relief.

A lull in the talking and the sound of Sailing by started. I was relaxed in an instance. This piece of music transports the listener the deck of a boat, drifting in a slight summer’s breeze. It is lovely and is used to introduce the Shipping Forecast every night. The forecast itself is enough to send me to sleep happy.

With all the digital channels that the BBC has, why can’t it give one over to have the shipping forecast and Sailing By on loop, 24 hr a day? Perhaps inter-dispersed with a few numbers station broadcasts from the Lincolnshire Poacher.

It’d be far more entertaining than most of the utter shite they churn out. It pisses me off that they think they can get away with producing self-indulgent rubbish because they don’t have commercial sponsors to answer to. The other day on 6 Music, listeners were subjected to a good ten minutes of tuneless noise, simply because they could play it. Arseholes.

Childless benefit
AT LAST there’s some benefit from the tax man for not having kids. After ten years of being screwed over time and again for the sake of people who keep breeding, those of us without kids are smiling. HA HA HA!!!

Well done Gordon!

I went shopping with Trump and her mum yesterday. Of course, there being 25% off everything at Debenhams meant that I simply HAD to buy a suit jacket for £60 and a leather jacket for £160! Tit. Still, £165 instead of £220 is a bargain as far as I’m concerned.

And I’ve put a claim in for my last six months’ worth of petrol expenses, so that should cover it.

I nipped into Poundland to have a look at the batteries, picked up a pack of 15AAs and took them to the till. “Can you do a price check on these please?” I enquired of the teenage assistant at the counter. She looked at me with disgust: “A pound?”. Oh yeah, of course, silly me.

Now then, what the fuck was I going to blog about? There was something interesting…

Spirito di Connie
My new car isn’t a Fiat Punto (hence “Spirito di Punto” reference), it’s a Nissan (no difference there then) Almera (big difference there!), which is OK and it has some nice features that the Primera didn’t. One such thing that you’d think would be quite handy is parking sensors – really useful for a nob like me who tends to use her rear bumper as a parking sensor. Anyway, rear parking sensors are so fucking annoying; they’re the electronic equivalent to having your elderly mum sat in the bag, going on at you:

Beep! “Oh look you’re going backwards, be careful now!”

You edge backwards slowly:

Beep, beep, beep “Hrrm, I’m getting a bit nervous now, don’t you think you’ve gone back far enough? I’m sure you can stop here, it’s fine here.”

But you know damn well that you’ve got miles of room behind you, so you keep going:

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP (rapidly) “Now, this isn’t funny! I wish you’d just stop, please. I’m coming over all unnecessary”

Oh fuck off, there’s acres of bloody space (not that I’d ever tell Connie to fuck off!):

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “You. Have. Killed. Me!”

House doctor
Trump’s house is on the market. We’ve been redecorating, getting new carpets, trying to de-clutter. There is a viewing tomorrow; me and Rocky have to get out of the way while people are being shown around. Trump has been instructed to tell viewers that her husband is dead (not as in “He is dead to me” because that wouldn’t give the right impression) and that she wants to move out to be close to her elderly parents – things that sound good to certain prospective buyers.

Got to do a sweep of the house to remove stray pairs of knickers from here and there.

Northern Lights
A few years ago, a talented British author wrote a trilogy. A masterpiece called His Dark Materials. The first book was called Northern Lights. There’s a film out on 5th December called the Golden Compass; Northern Lights as it was published in the States. Why did they have to change the name of it? The story is about the Northern Lights, Lyra’s journey there and stuff. Yes, the alethiometer is very important to the story, but it’s not even called a golden fucking compass. For fuck’s sake. Anyway, the film looks really good, so I’m going to go and see it.

Stranger than fiction
This is a good film too. I really recommend it. Emma Thompson is brilliant in it.

Still can’t remember what I was going to blog about, but it was something that got me really annoyed.

I’m not sure I like mobster films, but I love The Sopranos. It’s been the same old scenario whereby I encounter a TV phenomenon as it’s coming to its conclusion. I did the same with Spaced, Frasier, Friends and now I’m currently watching The Sopranos on DVD. It’s not a bad thing. At least this way, I can get it all over and done with relatively quickly and get on with my life, without having to wait for them to make the programme first.

But yeah, mobsters. Having an Italian dad, I’ve often wondered what it would’ve been like if he’d been on slightly the wrong side of the tracks. Fucking brilliant I bet. Imagine having a mob leader for a dad! A phonecall here, a quick word in the ear there, all problems sorted. The nearest we get is him being greeted with a respectful handshake and bowed head at the local Italian restaurant: “Good evening, Mr Donato, I have a fine table for you just here, not too draughty.”

The thing I can’t cope with in gangster films is all the characters, most of them called Paulie or Sal. It’s all too confusing, especially when you can’t hear what they’re saying with they’re mouths full of manicotti and peanuts.

Wiidow
That’s what I am. Trump has rekindled her love for Zelda on the Wii. She doesn’t half shout and swear a lot when she’s playing these games. And here’s me thinking they’re supposed to be fun and relaxing.

The music is quite sinister. It’s making me a bit scared, what with the sounds of running feet and swishing of swords. Her character keeps getting killed, you don’t get that in Wii Sports. I wonder if she’d do better if I made her a little outfit to wear, might help her be the main character.

I don’t think the main character is called Zelda, I think this is Link, although it could be called “You stupid fucking twat!”, from what I can gather.

From what I understand, the Wii will be in short supply yet again this Christmas. Fucking brilliant marketing ploy from Nintendo, as with others; let the whispers out now that stocks are low and hey presto, everyone rushes out to buy the must have present.

It is a brilliant console though.

Clever puppy
I got in from work this evening to discover that Rocky had destroyed: a rental DVD; bank statement; postcard; car insurance correspondence. He has abandonment issues. He also has cat issues, slipper issues, vacuum cleaner issues and Asda puppy food issues.

He doesn’t have any girl issues since we had him castrated a couple of weeks ago. That’s nothing compared to what we have planned for him for Christmas – dinner jacket and bow tie!

And he likes to pretend he’s pack leader. I don’t think so!

It’s been a while, but that just about sums things up.

Things have been busy, to the point that it feels a little out of control. Stuff going on, decorating bits of Trump’s house, getting my car written off, dealing with that, having to buy a new car, shit like that.

But there’s always one constant that comes back to haunt and taunt me every few years: power tools.

I fucking hate drilling holes in walls for the purposes of screwing things to said wall. You see folk on DIY programmes on the telly; drill hole, insert wall plug; screw bracket – or whatever – to the wall. LIARS!

In Sniffy’s experience, it works this way:

• Climb up rickety ladder
• Take the thing that’s to be fixed to the wall and mark screw holes on the wall
• Take drill, and select a masonry bit that matches the diameter of the wall plug
• Climb up ladder
• Climb down ladder
• Plug the drill in
• Climb back up ladder, position drill bit on the screw mark and start drilling
• Compose yourself, attempt to patch up the wallpaper that’s been ripped up by the wandering drill bit, FIRMLY position the drill bit a the site where the hole is supposed to be, then start drilling
• Climb down ladder, find wall plug
• Climb up ladder, attempt to insert wall plug into freshly drilled hole, curse
• Retrieve drill and drill into the existing hole, wiggling it about to widen the opening
• Use a hammer to knock the wall plug into place
• Repeat for hole number two
• Take bracket and position over newly drilled holes, with wall plugs inserted
• Ponder how the holes can’t be in the right position after all that planning
• Curse
• Screw into one hole, hammer into the other

I won’t go into the palaver of fixing the other bracket to a plaster board wall, but let’s just say that it’s a miracle how a shower curtain rail can be held in place with a solitary screw and half a tube of No-nails.

And why is it that the colour on the outside of a can of paint NEVER matches how it looks when it’s on the wall? The bathroom is now the colour of mint ice cream, as opposed to the more earthier pale sage colour that appeared on the can. I don’t understand why they even bother putting those little coloured labels on at all. They should call the whole range Russian roulette or Tin of Tombola because what you end up with is a total lottery.

I suppose it serves me right from migrating from magnolia or natural hessian.

DIY is crapola ultima.

Rubbish.

Gadget schmadget
Having to get a new car has its ups and downs. I’m now driving something newer, with a rear windscreen wiper that works and an accelerator as smooth as anything. It’s also nice having new bits to play with – mainly the stereo and climate control system – but also playing mind games with the rear parking sensors. On the downside, I’m down on half a litre of engine capacity, I’m in a smaller car with less power and no CD changer, just the single CD slot. Bums, eh?

For a while, I’ve wondered why car stereos don’t come with a USB slot for use with a flash drive MP3 player. It seems obvious to me. Imagine having 4GB of music for Trump to skip every track?

Mistletoe and why?
Christmas is around the corner, Cliff has his 2008 calendar out. Jesus.

Something else for the ladies
As if the lovely Peter Pants of Pop wasn’t enough, here’s something else for all hot-blooded women to consider: have you ever managed to put two tampons in at the same time? I did it yesterday – not deliberately, obviously. It was really uncomfortable for a couple of hours and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, so to speak. Imagine my surprise when I came to powder my nose…

I wonder how many I could fit up there. It’d be a bit like those competitions where people see how many basketball players can be squished into a Mini. I suppose it depends on what format they took. I mean, you could fit quite a few in if you hacked them up into bits then liquidised them first.

Me and Trump are getting V+ on our cable telly this weekend. I’ve come to realise that I miss the only programmes I want to watch because they’re on too late and we haven’t got a video to record things on anymore. I can’t wait to be able to pause live telly, record two things while watching another, have Miami Ink on series record.

Brill.

Jesus, VH1 are playing Stevie Wonder’s I just called. What a dreadful song. I wonder if he’d want to kill himself if he could see how daft he looks in his videos? Why do some of our most talented musicians have to ruin their reputations by producing one or two songs that are utter dross? Of course, many great talents have had their copy books permanently blotted by collaborating with Paul McCartney: Stevie, Jacko, the Frogs Chorus. None of them were the same after singing with Macca. Bloody hell, look what happened to Linda! Singing with him was literally the death of her.

She lives on in her pies, and that can never be a bad thing.

I’m going to watch MTV Dance until Ida Corr comes on.

I love dance videos; some of them are nothing short of soft porn. There’s this one with scantily clad young women using construction equipment – yes, pneumatic drills. And the one that’s on now has two women in a shower scene! And by the magic of Youtube…

Toing and froing
There’s lots of it going on out on the road tonight; it’s quite unnerving. Car doors slamming, people driving off, others arriving, knocking on doors, voices in the street…

When I pulled up earlier, a young man on a bike was trying to ride away from a hysterical woman who was pursuing him and screaming. “LET ME EXPLAIN!”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”

Ad infinitum

They were at it for ages. Some people have no shame.

This from the woman who runs about in her pyjamas, squeaking a latex chicken.

Brum, Brum
I went to Birmingham today. I went on the train with some colleagues. It was really smelly. Unfortunately, I needed a wee while we were travelling so had to use the facility on the train. It was just a little unnerving trying to have a wee knowing the toilet door shut so far as to leave a centimetre gap and the weird bloke loitering outside could’ve peeped through to see the reflection of me weeing in the mirror that was positioned opposite to the toilet.

Why? Can somebody explain why you need a full length mirror opposite a toilet?

I haven’t been to New Street railway station for at least 13 years and I don’t think it’s changed in all that time. Dump.

And why, when it’s clear that a seat is reserved, do people still choose to sit there, only to look all hurt when you point out that you’ve reserved the seat and that they need to move? Idiots. But then you apologise to them for asking them to move! Perhaps you’re actually apologising on behalf of them? “I’m sorry, it must be difficult being a total fucktard.”

I used to have to travel through Birmingham on the train quite a lot before I got my car when I lived in Coventry. On one particular journey to Barnsley, I’d walked from my house in Cov, caught the train to New Street, where I’d changed to get the train to Barnsley or Sheffield or somewhere around there where they have that weird accent. It was on this last leg of the journey that I’d finally got a seat and as I caught my reflection in window, I realised that I’d been travelling with a leaf sticking up in my hair all the way from somewhere between my house and Coventry station.

Fucking trains.

PS
20.55 MTV Dance Ida Corr vs Fedde La Grande. YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! I don’t understand why scruffy man thinks jeans and a hoody is suitable attire when those lovely young ladies went to such an effort to look their best. I’m having a cold sweat now.

Would I like to spend an evening being entertained by the delightful Ms Ida Corr and her very musical friends? Let me think about it…

Blimey, ain’t she just something else?

I needed fresh chillies yesterday and I couldn’t be bothered to go to the supermarket, or to venture onto the high street. But there’s a collection of shops and takeaways nearby and one is a gardening shop that has expanded to sell vegetables and some deli good. It’s owned by an eccentric looking chap with panama hat and elaborate beard.

With a touch of trepidation, I entered. Inside I found that I was pleasantly surprised by what they sold and I grabbed a hand of chillies and took them to the young woman at the till. She weighed them and calculated the price. “That’s three pence please”. Shocked, I fumbled through the change in my dog-walking jacket pocket and pondered paying her with a dog biscuit.

THREE PENCE? That would’ve cost about £1 in the supermarket.

I gave her 20p and declined the change, which went into the charity box.

My thoughts returned to the idea of paying for goods with the dog biscuits in my pocket. Wouldn’t bartering and payment of goods by exchange of services be fun? I’m sure, given the demographic of the area, this is pretty common between businesses anyway, but could you imagine trying it down Tesco?

“I’ll stand by the door and make sure no rif-raff get in if you give me my shopping for free.”

“And what if we decline your offer?”

“I burn your shop down?”

It might work at Asda I suppose. When the big Asda in East Manchester opened, they had to sack half the workforce within the first week because the checkout staff were allowing their mates through the tills without scanning half their shopping. Serves them right for thinking they can regenerate a deprived area by building unaffordable housing, crappy supermarkets and casinos.

But that’s neo socialism for you….

Gordon is a moron
I’ve knocked thieving cunt Gordon Brown for over a decade now. Incompetent Chancellor and now unelected Prime Minister, the man has overseen and held the purse strings for Government since they came into power in 1997. Despite him being responsible for the disaster of NuLabour, his PR machine has tried to con the country into thinking that we have a brave new leader who had absolutely nothing to do with that nasty Tony Blair. Gordon Brown would save us all, despite him causing much of the mess in the first place.

Of course, aided and abetted by the BBC and the Guardian, the Labour spin machine seemed to be successfully conning the electorate and Labour had a remarkable turnaround in the opinion polls during a period of time when parliament was in recess and the opposition had zero opportunity to get a word in against him.

With a ten percent lead, election talk surfaces. “Let’s have an election before the recession hits next year, before the housing market collapses, before we abolish the 10% income tax rate and make all the really poor workers even less well off, before people finally realise how incompetent we are! ” A 1st November election was a 90% certainty this time last week,

But it being conference season, the opposition finally gets the chance to have a say, to start getting their message across, despite being upstaged by the BBC’s preference for reporting the Diana Inquest and the PM’s oh so brave visit to Iraq. The people don’t fall for it, they start getting the message from the other parties, the opinion polls swing back round again and Gordon, in his usual jaw-dropping, gasping manner, announces that he doesn’t want an election within the next 18 months afterall.

PUSSY!

What a manipulative, opportunistic, sneaky, cynical, cowardly, CUNT.

He treats the people with such contempt. I’d love a revolution.

Inked
I’m really warming to the idea of getting a tattoo, to the point that I’m about 100% sure of getting one. I’ll be getting my tongue split next!

Have you ever been at the till at the supermarket and the checkout assistant asks if you want help with your packing? You say No, thank you because you don’t want to look like a lazy twat. I mean, who on earth can’t manage to pack two carrier bags’ worth of shopping, for fuck’s sake?

Me, that’s who.

The items are scanned so quickly that they fly to the end of the conveyor belt. And they pile up and all the time you’re still struggling to get a carrier bag off the stand. Flustered and annoyed, you finally manage to get a bag from the stand and then comes the struggle to get the fucking thing opened. At this point, all the shopping has been scanned and the checkout youth is left staring at you with an expression of utter contempt having replaced the one of boredom, they add to the discomfort by telling you the total price of your shopping. You just know that they’re calling you a spaz and muttering under their breath, “Should’ve accepted my help to pack, fucktard!”.

Supermarket carrier bags used to be quite easy to get separated, but not any more. I blame the greenies and their insistence on us reusing suitcases when doing our supermarket shopping. Well actually, some of us like to collect plastic carrier bags to use for a) bin liners and b) picking up dog poo.

Besides, I’m too young to be using one of those bloody shopping carts like my parents had when I was a kid. You know the sort that were always made of brown or tartan vinyl?

I used to pootle along in front of my mum as we made our way from the mad-busy supermarket to the bus stop. I’d stop at my peril because this usually resulted in me being stabbed in the back of the leg from the spiky stand of the bag. She never did it on purpose or anything.

Rocky update
Rocky finished his puppy training tonight. I’d been looking forward to it all week, but the shitheads in Bury Council decided to resurface a section of road on our way to the class tonight – before the end of rush-hour. Huge tailbacks ensued and we were half an hour late for the class, he was unable to concentrate because he wanted to say hello to his friends and the whole event was a fucking waste of time.

But never mind, he’s been doing other things. Like growing his grown up teeth…

Taking his first dip….

And learning how to fly!

Certain things fill you with so much confusion and frustration that all you can do is clench your teeth and buttocks and shriek Nyyyighhhhh!!!! Probably in bold, red, UPPER CASE text with lots of exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the street Chez Trump, the houses don’t have driveways and residents park on the road. It’s customary and logical to park ones car on the bit of the road outside your house. You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you? So why then, does the woman from four doors away suddenly decide to start parking on the bit of road outside Trump’s house when the space outside her own is free? I find it totally baffling. She’s parked outside her own home since I’ve been visiting and living here, and over the past month or so, she’s decided on random occasions, to park outside our house. It’s not even easier to park there as she has to manoeuvre between two parked cars whereas she can just drive into the space outside her own house.

Trump doesn’t understand or sympathise with my frustration. I just want to ask her why she does it. There must be some reason for it, but I can’t fathom it.

Answers on a postcard please.

Still, it’s not as bad as the stupid cunt who visits her parents over the road and takes up enough space for two cars outside our house rather than parking over the road. Selfish fucking spaz. I’m convinced it was her who twatted my wheel arch once. She drives and parks like a complete and utter retard.

But I’m not allowed to get annoyed because, as Trump points out, she doesn’t own the road outside her house. Of course she doesn’t. But why can’t that fucking twat show a bit of consideration and park outside the house she’s visiting and not take up so much fucking room? I love the way I’m always in the wrong.

What’s the point of not euthanising people like that if you can’t even shout at them?

The dog is doing toxic farts. I might bottle some up and post them to the neighbours.

I’m also going to box up some Rocky poo and post it to myself here. Then the cunting postman who keeps nicking our parcels will get more than he bargained for. Bastard.

Sledgehammer
Remember Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer from 1986? I never knew it wasn’t a number one in the chart.

Remember Dido’s White Flag? That wasn’t a number one either. Surprised? No, me neither.

Good and bad at games
I’m hopeless at sports, games, anything where I have to pit my wits against man, machine or computer. But saying that, I’m having lots of fun playing Mario Strikers on the Wii. Top notch gaming pleasure.

Uh oh, better look lively, Trump’s home!

I really don’t get Facebook. I have an account, people signed up as my friends, people queued up waiting for me to confirm their friends requests (well, one), but I really don’t see the point of it. I have colleagues listed as my friends. They’re my bloody colleagues, for fuck’s sake, I don’t even talk to them at work!

Can somebody please enlighten me as to the point of Facebook? You have a conversation with somebody, but everybody else can see it. And anybody can just search for you and add you as their friend; “Some spurdy dur you really don’t even talk to at work has added you as their friend on Facebook”. You dread the e-mail coming through.

They’re in the next office at work and you hardly speak to them there, would you like to confirm them as your friend on Facebook so they can see a load of your personal photos and messages with other internet ne’er-do-wells?

Hell no! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes they’re welcomed, but generally these friend requests are puzzling, bordering on weirdo stalking. In fact, that’s exactly what Facebook is: a stalking tool for people who should know better.

Drag up
YAY, Tootsie’s on the telly! That’s a great film. From the same era as 9 to 5, it just makes you feel good watching it.

“This bruise? Oh it’s nothing, honestly. Just clumsy old me, walking into things!”
I have a painful bruise on my forehead where I’ve bashed it on the underside of the stairs. Here at Trump’s house, the doorway from the living room into the dining room has been moved so that the walkway takes you beneath the stairs, as opposed to past the bottom of them. This isn’t something that’s happened recently (the doorway move), it’s always been like that, but I keep twatting my head on the underside of the stairs. You know what it’s like when you bash your head so hard that it makes your teeth really clatter together? That’s what this is like.

Domestic bliss…ters
Me and Trump look like we’ve been fighting; she has a black eye from where she’s been rubbing hers.

But we don’t really fight. She shouts at me when we do domestic tasks. Today’s torture was brought to us by the words “Ikea” and “Wonderweb”. Ikea curtains being one length (about 5 metres), they need cutting down and hemming in order to fit any normal window. I don’t like to get involved, but I feel I have to (I’m told I have to), then I get shouted at. The end result is good and we can finally open the living room curtains because a) they now glide along the new curtain track, and b) we have nets up to stop the nosy fishwives from staring in on their twice-daily promenades along the street.

Isn’t the New Zealand accent funny?