This is where Stornoway is:

Yes, that’s it, the green arrow stuck in the Outer Hebrides, some islands off Scotland that are drifting into the North Atlantic somewhere.

I’d normally have no beef with Stornoway, or its 5,600 inhabitants. They’re probably very nice people. But the BBC are as obsessed with Stornoway as they are with Islam, global warming and recycling.

Every day you get the weather report. There are apocalyptic floods in major population centres in England; people are dying there, there’s no food, no power, but the weather reporter tells us “It may be raining like shit on the rest of us, but Stornoway’s 5,600 people are enjoying sunshine today”.

Stornoway.

Front page news on the BBC’s website today was an invasion of Stornoway town centre by some sheep that had escaped from somewhere. Here they are, escaping:

Of course, what you can’t see in the picture are the marauding hoards of kebab shop owners, trying to capture the sheep to make a mega doner that will last the town’s population for about 500 years.

Does Stornoway have a kebab shop? I think so. Check out this place:

New Island Star Carry Out Restaurant
28, South Beach,
Stornoway,
Isle of Lewis HS1 2BN
Tel: 01851 705256

Give them a bell to see if they do doner kebabs, I dare you! And don’t forget to ask them if they watch the weather report on the BBC news. I’m sure the BBC would like to be assured that the licence payers’ money is well spent on the grateful population getting a special mention every day.

RIP, Mr Manchester
You know Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays? The man behind them, Mr Manchester himself, Tony Wilson, died this evening. He was a bit pretentious, but he cared about putting Manchester on the map and he did just that. I’m not sure who Mr Stornoway is, but he’s doing a fucking good job!

I don’t think there are any Mancunians of any note left in the city these days. I can’t imagine anybody else having the influence, drive and passion that he did.

Hey ho.

Hot wheelie Trumpster
She came home in a car today. A sixteen year old Peugeot 205; like I learned to drive in years ago. Her OWN car. How cool is that? She let me drive round in it earlier, it was fucking ace.

Guitar Sniff
I picked up my old guitar last night. Didn’t have a clue what to do with it. I started learning classical guitar when I was about 8, I did exams and everything, then stopped playing when I was about 16. And when I picked it up again, I couldn’t remember a thing. But I tried and it made some noises that seemed like they should come out of a guitar.

Today, the wrist on my left hand is totally fucked.

Hungry
I’m peckish. We haven’t been shopping and there are no snack things in the house. No bread or anything. I might have to try dog biscuits.

I’d just have to be careful that eating them won’t give me the sudden urge to have a wee on the toilet then run downstairs and have a poo on the living room carpet.

Talking of Rocky, he’s just done his first wee by cocking his leg. He’s so grown up!

Why is it that blokes generally have to wear a shirt and tie in the workplace and women can get away with much less formal dress? I’ve never quite understood this.

Ah well.

Breasts
There’s a stink been kicked up by some nannying charities who want the advertising of infant formula to be banned. Fucking Breast is Best Nazis want to stop sticking their self-righteous noses into peoples’ business.

Having spent a considerable amount of time with a newborn this year, I think mothers should be forced to use formula to shut babies up. With the best intentions, some mums don’t satisfy their babies with the breast milk they can produce and they need to supplement. But of course, at the back of their minds are the lectures from the Breast Feeding Nurses at the maternity unit and the displeasure in said wimmins’ voices when they’re asked what to do if mum can’t breast feed. “Persevere!”, no “Well, you need to know how to sterilise bottles if you’re going to formula feed”, so the mums end up giving their babies nasty gut infections and killing them instead.

Cocks.

Let’s face it, with some of the shit that some breast-feeding mothers eat, formula is probably much safer than toxic boob juice.

Bored
I’m here at the Moonlighting Drug Testing Agency. What with having more mouths to feed, I need to bringing in more cash.

Working here occasionally has its bonuses; the folk here are nice, the work is OK (but there are long gaps at times), the money comes in handy for my gadget habit. But once you agree to do this sort of locum work, you always feel kind of tied. There’s no reason for me to feel a responsibility, but I feel guilty if I don’t agree to come in at weekends and evenings. The weekends are OK, it’s evenings that are killers.

But what I like about being here is that I’m back in the lab, doing science things, wearing a lab coat. Your day is dictated by beeping timers that help you stick to a set protocol. You have defined tasks.

And you get two hour gaps here and there.

And they don’t block blogger.

Pop my TV cherry
Tump upgraded our cable TV today. After a number of text messages asking when I thought the TV channels would come through, then one saying everything had gone off, I told her to phone them. Instead of upgrading us, they’d disconnected us.

Well done Virgin.

Of course, they’d never had treated her so shabbily had she dropped in a “Do you know who I am?”, which she has every right to now that she is a star of radio. It was weird listening to her as she gave an interview on Gaydio yesterday (listen live on http://www.gaydio.co.uk/!), it was her, but she sounded really professional. Made me feel unworthy.

But what if she is destined for stardom? How would I cope with being her wife, tagged along to premieres, never given a speaking role? There’d be gossip magazine articles about why she should dump me for some glamour model, the press would delve into my past. Actually, the press would delve into her past, which is a lot more interesting than mine.

Perhaps I’m off the hook. Perhaps me, Rocky and Looshkin won’t be abandoned afterall. The latter spent all night out last night. She came back wet, whingy and with her front paws died orange. I think she must’ve been messing about with the travelling fairground that appeared on the field at the back of us yesterday.

I wonder what a cat or dog would do if you took it on a waltzer?

Well, he’s here. Ain’t he just the cutest?

He’s lovely, and I’m enjoying spending time with him and teaching him to turn tricks. We’ve done sit, down, fetch, get that fucking pebble out of your mouth! I love nothing more than putting my fingers in the tripey mouth of a little dog. He’s learning “DROP IT!” tomorrow.

We’re having trouble with the house training. Whenever we think he needs a wee, we take him outside and he curls up at our feet. In and out, in and out; when you finally decide that he’s not ready and you bring him in, he pees. Little bastard.

And he hates being left on his own in the kitchen. Leave him on his own in the living room and he curls up and sleeps. Put him in the kitchen and he wails like a baby and trashes the place. All fucking night.

It’s not so much the trashing of his bed and pooing on the floor that I mind, it’s his insistence on stripping the wallpaper and putting really bad lino down that I find most upsetting.

We’ll get there eventually.

Pride
Me and Trump managed to avoid being stoned to death on the pride parade through a particular unnamed town to the north of Manchester on Saturday. It was actually very heartwarming to see all sorts of people watching on, many bemused, but many applauding as we walked. It made me very proud. It made me very proud of Trump.

My favourite moment of the day was at the close of the event when the compare spoke to a young boy in the crowd:

“Have you had a fun day today?”

“Yes!”

“Great! Are you going to grow up to be a homosexual? You should, it’s great!”

As the laughter died down, we could hear the ears of the local BNP sympathisers prick up. Fuck ’em, cocks.

You’ve seen the original,

You’ve seen the wedding videos

Now check out the Philippino prisoners!

I thought this was brilliant. Yes, they’re real prisoners. Yes, they’re really doing the Thriller dance. They find it better than daily exercises apparently.

Shat nav
Yes, Sniffy has her Shat Nav. I’m not convinced in all honesty, but it’s a gadget, and you can never have too many of those. I’ve already had a bit of fun with it, ignoring it and going the proper way home instead of the convoluted route that it was trying to take me:

“When it is safe to do so, turn round”

Yeah right.

I’m going to see what happens when I keep going round a roundabout and missing my exit.

You put in the postcode of the street where you live or work and it takes you to the alley at the end of the road.

I want to see what it does if I drive down a tramway in the middle of town.

Somewhere, over the rainbow….
Weigh a pie.

Looking forward to the Rainbow Parade tomorrow. Perhaps if I carry my pink Union Jack, the BNP won’t get me and I’ll just have to fend off the religious extremists instead.

Cocks.

I am very excited. Heroes starts on telly tonight.

Imagine living your life as normal, with the odd weird thing happening, only to find out in adulthood that you’ve actually got special powers.

Similar to boy wizard Harry Potter, whose magical powers were unknown to him until he was made aware of his wizarding heritage at the age of 11. And so it ends, and that’s where I’ve been; reading the final instalment of the series. I had to read the Deathly Hallows as quickly as possibly in case some bastard tried to ruin it for me. Four days isn’t bad for me; I’m quite a slow reader.

I really enjoyed this one – a fitting end to a most enjoyable literary era. When you think about it, it’s been quite unique; all these millions of children growing up with Harry and chums. With each book, the stories darkened, the writing style aged accordingly too.

So that’s that.

Under the weather
Parts of the midlands have quite literally been under the weather since torrential rain caused heavy flooding at the weekend. Many towns are cut off, without a fresh water supply, without electricity. Vulnerable people have been airlifted from their homes. Those who remain can only wade through deep water to get to the shops, shops that have very little stock. Bottled water is being dropped off to the stranded by RAF helicopter. It’s something akin to a third world disaster zone.

I was watching the scenes on the news the other morning and it occurred to me that Tesco were really missing a trick. With all their billions, how come they haven’t invested in a few Chinooks and a frigate to drop off provisions bought through their online shopping service?

Excitement
This weekend sees me and Trump going on a Pride parade in the town where she grew up and now works. It’s not the most cosmopolitan place on the planet and is seen to be home of some very polarised communities: large areas of solely muslim occupants separated from solely white areas. The demographic profile has caused problems and has been a magnet for extremist trouble makers on both sides.

A gay pride parade is probably about the only thing that will unite them.

Ain’t diversity a wonderful thing?

If you’re in the North West on Saturday and have nothing better to do, come along and show your support. You can contact me for details if you’re serious.

If we survive the muslim extremists and BNP and get through Saturday, Sunday sees us pick up Little Rocky. Little Rocky? Who?

This is Rocky:

I’ve never had a dog before. I am excited.

At the moment, he is a furball, but once he is grown a bit and clipped to shape, he’ll be a miniature Schnauzer.

I think the priority is getting him an appropriate neckerchief, but Trump is thinking of boring things like toilet training and discipline. I think Looshkin will have his face off within a minute if she’s given the chance.

Updates to come.

Now… HEROES!

This is the definition of my life; lying in bed in the sunshine…

Well, that’s a fucking laugh, we’ve had no sunshine here since the first week of June – nothing but fucking miserable rain, with temperatures no higher than 20°C. I’m so depressed. But even so, and no matter how tempting, I hadn’t gone into hibernation for the past couple of weeks, I’ve just been networkless.

But anyway, keen observers will have noticed a connection between a certain photo from my previous post with a certain hospital that was shown on television news after a number of foreign doctors were arrested following a botched islamic terrorist bomb plot here in the UK.

Good eh? You work at a place for 6 years and fuck all happens until the day after you leave. It probably says something about the organisation too: rubbish at balancing its books; in constant hot water with the press (fairly or not) over poor clinical services; but brilliant at turning out alleged terrorists!

According to sources back at Base 2A, Posh Scouse was at her faffing, flapping best at the news. Had I been there, I’d have been tempted to cure her hysteria the only way I know how. It would’ve been a mercy slapping.

Boring news things.

Hi, I’m Sniffy and I am a Virgo. I love computers and Hot Tamales!
Oh yes I do! And this week, I received two consignments of hot cinnamon delights from over the seas. I’m so happy. My gums and tongue hurt from trying to eat them by the mouthful.

Toxic Trump
She’s hungover. She’s been eating crap. She’s sat next to me in bed. She’s trumping.

We went to a barbecue yesterday afternoon – there was a gap in the rain clouds and somebody took advantage of the only dry afternoon in months. After missing the first round of food, we ate crisps; she drank beer, me, the usual Pepsi Max.

We’re enjoying outdoor pursuits today too. An outdoor music festival in Salford. Middle of July, should be OK, even in England? This is the weather forecast, courtesy of the BBC.

Shit, non?

I hate this fucking country. Everything about it is totally horrible.

Tori Amos and the ADHD audience
We went to see Tori Amos last week. Trump decided that she didn’t want to be there and sat, arms folded the entire evening, showing no appreciation for the wonderful musician performing on stage.

She, and I, were even less appreciative of the fucktards on our row who found it impossible to sit through a two hour concert without constantly getting up to go to the bar or the toilet. For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with them? I was sat at the end of the row and on the tenth occasion that one of them returned, pleadingly saying “Sorry?” and wanting me to stand up so they could return to their seat, I was so very tempted to tell them “No, go round and disturb somebody else, cunt!”. I just scowled at them instead.

They know they’re being annoying, they stand there and say “Sorry, can I be really annoying (again!) and get past you?” So should they be surprised if they were told no?

I blame the education system. We were never allowed to leave class to go to the toilet at primary school. We were taught the discipline to sit through the lesson and wait until break. They’re not allowed to this these days because it infringes on children’s human rights. Hence, when they get to adulthood, they expect to be able to walk out of concerts, training sessions, meetings, rather than waiting until they’re supposed to go.

Fucktards.

They’ll learn when they have poor bladder control by the time they’re forty; relying on first Tena Lady then full incontinence pads.

Little Con
Here she is!

Clearly shocked and appalled at one of Trump’s farts. And equally shocked and appalled at the revelation that she can go longer without having a wee than concert audiences.

One of the most intriguing programmes on telly these past few weeks has been Channel 4’s Sex Change Hospital. It features the hospital in Trinidad, Colorado that is the sex change capital of the world.

Marci Bowers, herself a transexual, is the chief surgeon and a woman who I like. The episodes show her meeting her patients, discussing their operations, and then getting right down to the graphic details as people go through genital reassignment surgery.

It is fucking gruesome, but compelling viewing all the same. Marci is a superstar who injects more than a touch of humour as she does away with her patients’ bits and doings.

There was one trans man who never seemed happy with whatever procedure he had done; plunging himself and his partner into more and more debt, just so he could have the body he wanted.

His main complaint was that his penis wasn’t large enough and that he had trouble reaching orgasm. He was about ten stone overweight. In theatre, Marci had a look at him, eaked his manhood out from beneath the fatty folds and, post op, recommended that he try to clean the cheese from his nob.

Boys will be boys eh?

The Hostel
I watched The Hostel on div at the weekend. Such a gory film, such a worrisome prospect – worrisome by the fact that you could actually imagine societies that kidnap folk so that rich people can pay to torture and kill them.

Trump had to watch Shrek to get over it.

I don’t think we’ll be going on holiday to Slovakia in a hurry.

The Hostel and Sex Change Hospital have many similarities. It’s just that Marci Bowers cuts out the middleman kidnappers and charges her own victims for their slashings and cuttings, but lets them go at the end of it.

I HATE Tesco Express; LOATHE it!

I cannot believe the contrast between these sorry sack of shite excuses for shops and the proper parent Tesco supermarkets, which I love.

The only thing worse than Tesco Express is Tesco Metro, which I’ll come to in a minute.

Today’s insult from the retail giant’s corner shop came when I visited the store close to where I work. I wanted to pick up something for lunch – I fancied sushi – and some salami and salad and stuff for tea. I was horrified to see that 95% of the store’s refrigerated cabinets – and there are lots of them – were taken up by fizzy drinks and crates of beer. No food, no sushi, just beer and pop. What the fuck?

Half the vegetable shelving was occupied with crates of Coke too. Brilliant.

I bought a packet of crisps and asked why all the fridge space was taken up with beer and pop and why there wasn’t any food.

“It’s because the students have mainly gone home”, was the response.

So people who work at the university and hospital don’t need to eat then? They just want to come here for crates of booze to sup on at their desks?

Cunts.

I have a killer headache now because I didn’t have a proper lunch.

CUNTS!

Tesco Metro is another of Tesco’s evil dopplegangers. Jeez, these stores are torture. Millions of people, all from different parts of the globe, all with different ideas about manners, queuing, speaking in uncomfortably loud voices. We were in there the other day; a child in front of us in the queue for tills couldn’t help themselves touching every single packet of whatever (sweets, chocolates) on the shelves that lined the queue. STOP TOUCHING THINGS!

For fuck’s sake! Why do these little retards have to do this? Can’t they keep their shitty little hands to themselves? Can’t their accompanying adults make them stop??

Death stare
I was talking with my colleagues about what super power I’d like if I had the choice. In addition to the obvious – the power of flight – I’d love to have a death stare. Imagine being able to make somebody burst into tears and run away from you just by looking at them. Yeah, yeah, I do that anyway. Imagine being able to make somebody burst into flames just by giving them the dead eye? Fantastic.

Strangers in the night
The Strangers in the night ice cream van is doing its rounds again. It’ll be here any second. I might go and see if it actually sells ice cream.

“Can I have a Flake 99 and… errrrm… how much for a speed ball?”

Fuckers.

Fuckers.

Fuckers.

Today is brought to you by the Number of the Beast and the word KNOCKERS!

Oh my poor head.

I’ve got the day off today. I’m still in bed. If we had proper summer weather in this country, I’d be out and about, enjoying the warm sunshine, skipping through flower-filled meadows, stopping to make daisy chains.

Ahhh.

As it is, we’ve had apocalyptic weather for the past eight weeks and I think today the UK is being hit by a fucking hurricane. Awful wind and rain and cold.

It’s so bad that my body is being tricked into going into hibernation.

I’m going to book a holiday, get away from this place, get a bit of sunshine.

Where should I go?

Out on a school night
So why did I choose to take such an awful day off work? Well, I went out last night and, anticipating this and subsequent tiredness, I planned ahead and booked a day’s leave. But where would Sniffy go on a school night?

Yes, I went to see the FABULOUS Marc Almond.

He was wonderful. What a voice! What a performer! Not bad for somebody who nearly died a couple of years ago.

Trump kept her ticket: “I’m keeping this, he might be dead soon”, she said as we entered the Ritz in Manchester.

So that was good.

The audience was so weird. I don’t know why, but whenever I’m at a standing only venue, I always get to stand behind the tallest blokes with the biggest spiky hair. They wore lots of eye makeup and their female companions were equally odd-looking.

Between me and that giants, stood a bloke in a dogtooth check jacket – he was arm’s length from the woman he was with. They didn’t speak. He shuffled his position and scratched his greasy head at just the right times to ensure that he, in combination with They might be goth giants, blocked my view of the star of the show. He and his woman left after half an hour. They didn’t speak or make contact with each other, simply turned and left. Weirdos.

Fuck, why am I complaining about weirdos at a Marc Almond concert?

Thank you for the invitation
I was supposed to be going out for a curry with my colleagues tonight. But the only colleagues that I’d care to spend time out of (and in) work with aren’t going. Now, politically, I should go because it’s a leaving do for somebody who’s been acting head of department for a year or so, plus, some new “team” members have been invited before they take up their posts so it’d be good to show my face. But I can’t be arsed. If I’m just going to show my face, then this tells me that I shouldn’t really be going. Especially if it’s not free.

Work’s dos are generally torturous affairs, thought up to keep employees on their toes. I’m sure they should be covered by employment laws so that workers across the world are protected from this out of office scrutiny. “We want to thank you for your efforts throughout the year. This is your opportunity to let your hair down. Enjoy yourselves. But not too much, obviously, because we’re still watching and we will remember every single faux pas.”

Why don’t I just put my blog address on my e-mail signature?

I really hate it when people send me an e-mail that starts simply:

Tina,

No “Dear Tina” or “Hi Tina” or “Ahoy there Tina”, just “Tina”. The message content is usually a single sentence, or question, which is closed off by the sender’s name in the absence of a “Best wishes”, “Thanks”, “Regards”, “Yours ignorantly”, etc.

Rude bastards. How difficult is it to add an extra three words to a message? You can even include the “Best wishes” bit as part of your e-mail signature, for fuck’s sake.

Brothers and Sisters
This is a new programme that started on Channel 4 this evening. I’m watching it at the moment, but I haven’t got a fucking clue what’s going on. I hope it gets better, I’ve been looking forward to this and I’d hate for it to be totally shite.

Hrrm, there’s a KT Tunstall song playing, I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad sign.

Jalapeno flavoured jelly beans
These things are the business. I’m sure you could end up in hospital if you ate enough of them, but it’d be worth it to see the colour of your poo when they came out.

Hot tamales
Can somebody in North America please post me a bag of Hot Tamales? I really like them.