This is the first in a new series of posts about “everyday” things that are cause for heated debate throughout the world.

Today, I’m tackling the thorny issue of combat pants.

Before continuing, I’ll just cover the UK/US differences in terminology. I’m not sure what the etiquette is over that way, but in the UK, we call long-legged garments, “trousers” and underwear is generally called “pants” or “knickers” or “briefs” – that kind of affair. That’s the rule unless you live in the North West of England where “trousers” are often called “pants”. No idea why there’s the difference here, but there is.

“Pants” is also used as an adjective for something that’s a bit crap. So if you hear or read: “That’s totally pants”, it means that whoever said/wrote it didn’t think much of something.

What I mean by combat pants are the new fashion diversion from the army surplus design. They come in all sorts of colours and fabrics, but commonly in khaki, beige or brown – in sort of cottons and shit like that. Another fashion idea is to tart them up with embroidery, suquins and things.

OK the charges brought against combat pants are as follows:

1. You can only wear them if you’re under 35
2. You can only wear them if you’re less than a size 14 (fuck knows what that is in foreign, you’ll just have to work it out for yourselves – let’s just say, size 14 is getting on the tubby side of the scales)
3. You can only wear them if you’re tall
4. OR you can wear them if you’re a shortarse, but can get hold of the right length
5. You can never wear them with high heels under any circumstances (but the type of lasses who usually wear combat pants don’t tend to wear high heels anyway)

There are probably lots of other charges to be brought against combat pants, but I can’t be arsed to think of any.

With the confidence to try anything – even dangerous things

Closing remarks from Judge Cakesniffer
Are combat pants and their derivatives simply the shell suit of the…. errrm what’s the terminology for the noughts?… for the 2000s? You are the judge and jury on this one. Let the waiting world know your verdict.

No home is complete without the addition of a bit of well-positioned greenery. Houseplants provide a contrast to the artificial trappings of modern-day furniture and bits of technology that litter our living spaces.

They vary in size, shape, colour, flowering and there’s an abundance of flora to suit any householder’s requirements.

Why, oh why, oh why then, are we inflicted with this sorry shower of shit?

I’m going to indulge in a blogtastic game of Houseplant Big Brother whereby our contestants face a public vote for eviction from the house. Slightly different to the TV version, you cakesniffers can suggest an interesting fate for whichever useless piece of green (or varigated) shit gets kicked off.

Let’s have a look at the contestants.

Housemate 1: Some furry-leafed, semi-suculant, boring crap thing that sometimes flowers. It might be a violet of some kind, but who gives a flying fuck? It looks dreadful.

Housemate 2: Not strictly a houseplant, but indoors is the only place you’ll get good old Basil to grow in the UK. Hardly a hardy perennial, this guy goes mad in the sunshine then drops dead as soon as we get to October. Pathetic.

Housemate 3: This is interesting. This is a photo of a Spider plant that I got from Google images. If spider plants looked like this in real life, then I might be willing to forgive them, but they don’t do they? To see what spider plants look like in real life, see Housemates 5 and 11.

Housemate 4: Oh goody, the Peace lilly! This specimen had one flower on it when I bought it 4 years ago. It’s had one more since. Truly the ugliest, most unreliable waste of space, light and water anybody could imagine. BIN IT!

Housemates 5 & 11: I can’t bear the thought of revisiting the Spider plant again, so I’ll do these pathetically shit examples together. Whereas Housemate 3 showed us what a spider plant could aspire to (no doubt after taking anabolic steroids), this sorry pair show us the grim reality of spider plant world. They just can’t be arsed, can they? In fact they’re so unattractive that they have to resort to asexual reproduction. So not only are they fucking gross, they’re in-bred with it!

Housemate 6: Aahh, the good old Weeping fig, which has the potential to be a very impressive bit of greenery. Get yourself a weeping fig, put it in a nice big pot with lots of lovely compost, find a nice bright spot in the room and NEVER MOVE IT EVER AGAIN! They just cannot cope with being moved, these things. Shift them from their favourite positions by just a tad and all their leaves fall off. I’m rather fond of my weeping fig – we shared some pretty grim times when we were in Sheffield together, but it almost died when it moved to Manchester with me. Nice plant, but surprisingly crap.

Housemate 7: This is just some sort of boring old parlour palm that never really does anything. It’s not particularly attractive or impressive and it has the propensity to fall over when it gets too tall for its pot. Boring.

Housemate 8: Oh look, a Peace lilly that’s decided to flower. Well done, have yourself a drop of Baby Bio and take a rest, you must be tired after all that fucking hard work! Pile of shit. I wouldn’t mind, but you wait YEARS for it to finally flower and the flowers themselves are the ugliest fucking things you’ve ever seen. Crap, crap, crap!

Housemate 9: Some other variety of palm that looks particularly good when it’s had all its leaves chewed to bits by a neurotic ginger tom.

Housemate 10: Don’t know what this is, it’s just brown and spikey.

Housemate 12: Don’t know what this is; it’s just green and spikey.

So there you have our contestants. Leave your vote and any interesting houseplant anecdotes with me and I’ll compile a top ten of eviction preferences.

Interwebbing is great fun, particularly these blogs. It takes a bit of time, but after a while a community of bloggers builds up who read and comment on each others’ endeavours. This goes on for a while and you sort of get to know certain things about people in the gang, more about some than others. The one day, something suddenly dawns on you; you have no idea what sex somebody is. Even more confusing is the fact that the perceived sex seems to change, depending on the post or comment that that particular person submits.

Now, I may be being a bit thick, and this is probably the case, but I have to admit that I’ve absolutely no idea whether Aasmodeus is male or female.

You’d be hard pushed to find a warmer and more welcoming bedroom than that of yours truly. I spent over a week stripping paper, knocking out plaster, filling cracks, papering and painting back in December. God, it seems like yesterday.

Anyway, by the magic of photo stitching, here’s a panoramic shot of my little boudoire:

Admittedly, it’s a bit like waking up in a tub of vanilla ice cream, but I like it.

Of course having such a room, any visitor is instantly overcome by its inviting creams and soft percall bedding. The photographs are a point of conversation, but not for long. They sit on the bed, lightly tapping the space beside them; invite me to join them. Looking a bit whatsit, it all starts to get thingy and you lie down alongside each other, faces get closer. Your heart races, images flash through your mind…

Could this be it? Could it really be happening? Getting off while they’re all downstairs?

Alas, something seems wrong. Something’s caught their eye… it all stops… you join their gaze and look up to see:

Still, at least it’s a conversation point.

This security alert appeared in my inbox at work today, it’s an official notification from the team brief:

Only complete nobheads forget to put their headlamps on while driving at night. Drivers and pedestrians use elaborate methods to draw errant motorists’ attention: pointing; flashing their own headlights; running after the car, mouthing “Your lights!”; and my own particular favourite is to turn my own headlamps off then on again.

Regular sniffy aficionados will know about my little problem with “art”.

Nice then to learn that a £42,500 “exhibit” may have been mistakenly drunk by a visitor to an art exhibition in Devon, or Dorset or somewhere (£42,500 bottle of water snatched). Here’s a snippet from the account:

The two-litre clear plastic bottle containing melted ice from the Antarctic was devised to highlight global warming by artist Wayne Hill. But the warm weather is thought to have got the better of someone who snatched it at the Ways with Words festival at Dartington Hall in south Devon.

He added: “It is a strong piece and I would like to get my hands on it. It was scheduled for further exhibitions later on in the year, and it was getting around and gaining a small reputation for itself.”

Tosser

Those who have seen my interview at Angry Chimp will know how this works. I’ve asked Connie of connielingus a few interview questions and it’s given me the opportunity to go back over her blog and remind myself of some of the things I really enjoy about it (apart from the obvious of course!).

Connie was the first blogger who linked to me, I was thrilled to find her, but a bit confused by all the rust!

Here’s what her take is on being a Blogstar.

1. How long have you been blogging?

Since March 2005

Here’s how her first post went:

……….and go………
and so here i am, about to embark on a fabulous new blog……yeah, its gonna be good…..interesting and chock full of wit and insight…..i want to have a cult-like following…..hope that works out.GT’s everyone…..GT’s

2. Why did you start blogging?

Being a secret, happy, diary writer for years I had read a couple of enticing articles in a mere couple weeks (in my favorite magazines and newspapers), listing the wonderful benefits and happiness available in the world of bloggydom.I guess I was curious…..

3. How many posts have you written to date?

5 months worth…. approx. 150 give or take…….

4. Which post are you most proud of and why?

Well, for readership alone, my “Guess the Knocker Knockout” series. I received 150 people the day I showcased it, and over 200 the day the answers came out….(on an average day I range from 50 – 100 people..).

I am also proud of my “Corrosion of The Week” (just because I sound intelligent.)

STUFF THAT! This one’s my favourite!

And not forgetting “The L Word Reviews” BLIMEY!

5. Who was the first person to comment on your blog – outside of friends/family?

I think it was Tina Cakesniffer! shortly followed by April Pissoff and Herge The Angry Chimp…..

When Connie met Tina …aahhhh, intit lovely?

6. What would you rather have – less visitors but more comments or many visitors but no comments?

I used to think more visitors was best, but nowadays I really truly live to see my comments at the end of the day….. I have so many “people” from all over the world who check into my blog almost everyday and never leave a comment. I don’t know who they are……. I sorta like knowing, at least a little bit, of who reads my blog. I guess the initial thrill of the anonymous reader has worn off.

(No idea what happened to question 7, or whether I sent it)

8. Do your friends/ family read your blog?

Yes, but I definitely know now the positives to having an anonymous blog that no one knows about!The people I could make fun of! The things I could bitch about!I guess I started out as a sorta “here’s my life” blog….. and it’s been a variation of that ever since.

This is Max, he’s the most gorgeous cat on the planet, no doubt about it…

He’s 11 years old and, at a recent check up, the vet said he was a perfect weight – despite seeming a little lightweight – and that most cats are massively overweight.

Excellent!

So Max is a perfect weight, but what do Mother and Father do? Get him some special pouched food, just for him, to see if they can make him eat more.

Fucktards. No wonder I’ve always been a fucking fat bloater, being force fed like some sort of goose that ends up as pate.

Anway, Sonny has taken on the mantle of being a ginger cat in every sense of the word: he’s a bloody off his head, mental, homicidal-psycho-jungle-cat. Sonny is 8 this year, just look at those claws of death:

These two felines were recruited by informed consent into an uncontrolled trial of the effects of Whiskas pouched cat food on mental ability (“can’t be arsedness”). Remember, Max is fed the puched food and Sonny gets standard Felix and Costco brand dried cat food.

Let’s see what happens when we try to tickle both of our participants with a magpie feather:

“Oooh, what’s all this then?”

“Worth having a look at”

“C’mere, y’fucker!”

“Nyyyyyighhh! BASTARD!”

And when we try it out on Max?

See? His new poncy diet has addled his brain and he can’t be arsed being a cat anymore. I think the packaging plant for the place has been infiltrated by the Avian league of friends and they’ve introduced a powerful neurotoxin into pussy pouches. Poor old Max! I wonder if you can tell that a cat’s been brain damaged when he spends 23 hours a day sleeping??

Anybody who’s ever changed their Blogger profile pic will notice that previous images remain in comments, even after the photo has changed. Herge Smith suggested that a dedicated blogger might actually submit a series of comments on a blog, but change their profile pic to suit the mood of each comment.

What an excellent idea!

Following some earlier comments about my current photo, and taking on board Herge’s suggestion, I locked myself away with my trusted digicam and came up with the following:

I tried to capture the full range of my facial expressions, but strangely enough, I managed to completely miss out on “gormless” (I mean really gormless). Actually, I think I only have three core facial expressions: annoyed; confused; gormless – I struggle to do “happy” because that usually ends up as gormless.

If anybody has any preference as to which one I use as my next profile pic, I’ll happily take it on board. Fuck, that makes me sound really up my own arse. Soz.

Having pissed about in Photoshop to compile that little montage, I put my PC under considerable strain. Isn’t the noise of a franticly whiring and clicking hard drive one of the most disconcerting and stress-inducing sounds in the entire world?

Fuck knows!

But you don’t beat it by turning your country into a police state, eroding your citizens’ freedoms, instilling paranoia or shooting the faces off innocent foreigners. You beat terrorism through effective intelligence, a trustworthy security and police service and by carrying on as normal. Will the British tradition of a cup of tea and a sit down help here?

Some peoples’ attitudes to the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Station are sickening. Carole Malone, a columnist writing in the Sunday Mirror (quality!), says: “Tragic… but gun cops were right There’s no question that the death of Jean Charles de Menezes is a tragedy. But then so were the deaths of 56 innocent people on July 7″.

Stop right there! How long will it take before there are more innocent people murdered by our own trigger-happy, twitchy coppers; how long before the death toll of those killed “in tragic police misunderstandings” equals that of the terrorist victims? (See also a very forthright appraisal of events by visiting Angry Chimp).

This country is close to, or may have already, lost it big time and it’s all down to that fucking cock Blair, his pathetically inept cabinet and the government’s reign of paranoia that they’ve been trying to force-feed us since the 11th of September attacks. This lot just don’t cut it, never have, but they’re very good at duping the British electorate and look at the state of the nation now.

The war in Iraq and the military action has been blamed for these attacks in London. I’m sure they haven’t helped in people’s attitudes towards the UK, but the west was being targetted by Islamic extremists before we went into Iraq with all guns blazing.

There’s a lot of work to be done on the part of the Muslim communities in the UK, who, for one reason or another, are allowing young men to develop murderous attitudes against their own neighbours (developing murderous attitudes is abhorrent full stop). There is no excuse for blowing people up, none whatsoever, and it seems that the Islamic message of peace isn’t getting through to some. Fuck it, I don’t know. It just seems that some people living in largely Asian areas have no intention of accepting British values and they’d rather sneer at Western society than do something to be a part of it while maintaining their identity. I don’t think this attitude has helped one bit and the British have been too soft and done too much to cow down to those who want to live in little Karachis than encourage them to embrace (or even accept) our culture and our way of life.

It’s easy to go on the attack though, and the same can be said for the Brits abroad in countries like Australia and Spain, where they all live together in their own little parts of the cities or towns. I guess people want to stick with what’s familiar to them and you can’t blame them.

But observers can see what’s happening in the UK in the microenvironment of this post: finger-pointing; blaming your neighbours; fear; division. All things the terrorists want are now happening and it has to stop.

People need to be vigilant, but it’s very hard to see things clearly in a blind panic.