Yes, art as in “art, dahling!”, not ART as in “assisted reproduction technology”. How sad is that?

Personally, I think a lot of art is pretentious crap that’s produced by egotistical wankers. “But it enables you to gauge how the artist feels about a particular subject matter”. Why the fuck should I be interested in how some shithead interprets his or her feelings about something? Why can’t they just say it like anybody else? Tossers.

I don’t get art. My idea of hell includes a visit to an art gallery before an evening at the ballet or a poetry recital. Poetry???? Fuck.

Design, however, is great. Design makes us want a particular one out of lots of possible somethings – functional objects mainly. Design incorporates aesthetics, ergnomics, and lots of other “ics”. Design is clever. Take Alessi as a frexample. You get a load of things in your kitchen and Alessi’s designers take these things and do wonderful things to them to make them fun, more interesting – ornamental even, but functional all the same. Alessi put the fun into functional. Oh dear, my sincere apologies for that one.

Photography is great, I love it. Photography captures the moment. But simple changes to the camera settings can give quite different results. For example, if you don’t put the flash on, images may be blurred since the exposure time lengthens to allow more light in. (That was a piss-take, btw). One of the best things about photography is Photoshop. Look what I’ve put together:

I uploaded this using the new feature in the Blogger compose window

Now, after two posts in one evening, I’ve exhausted my subject matter for the entire weekend.

This one, Ed?

I love Arthur’s face on this one. He’s desperate for companionship from the big lump of fishy-smelling feline on the wall.

By popular demand! Edwaado wanted this pic (I think).

That Arthur is a bit of a character, it must be said.

It’s your mother!
Mothers are great. You love them, they love you. You annoy them, they tell you off. They can be the most terrifying creatures on the planet. They can also be the most irritating.

I don’t know why, but when they get to a certain age, they go daft. They become completely unreasonable. They don’t listen. They never shut up.

Some of my mum’s favourite ways to irritate me are: saying “I imagine” and”It’s ready when it’s ready”; and by moving bits of cutlery, salt and pepper pots and anything within her reach around the table while we’re sat round after a meal.

You can be sat reading, quietly enjoying the celeb mags that come with the Sunday papers; Mother will be in the room, reading one of the papers and you’ll get “Tut, tut, tut, it’s always the same…” Knowing that responding will get you embroiled in an argument with your mum’s logic, you keep still and pretend not to have heard. A few minutes later, “Did you read this about the [whatever]?” Even if you say you have, she’ll go on to recount the entire newspaper report and add her own editorial.

There’s no possibility of watching anything on the telly in her company for the constant running commentary. She even repeats what’s just been said in the news, despite the fact that you’re sat next to her and watching the same broadcast.

A few months ago, she thought she’d been caught speeding by a speed camera: “When will I hear anything?” I told her it usually takes about a month.

“How much is the fine?”, she went on.

“About £60 and 3 points on your licence.”

“Sixty pounds? And it takes about a month?”

“Yeah, you’ll know in a month. And there’s a 3 point endorsement too.”

“Sixty pounds, that’s terrible. As least I won’t have any points on my licence, it was only about 35mph in a 30 zone.”

“For the THIRD TIME, THERE WILL BE THREE POINTS ON YOUR LICENCE TOO!!”

“Oh, so you only get points if it’s your third speeding offence?”

Fuck me!

Slo-mo Dad
My dad is the slowest man alive. Everything he does is in slow-motion. Watching him eat is painful (in fact, listening to him eat is pretty bad too): he’ll pile as much food onto his fork as possible, then lift the fork very slowly while lowering his head and opening his mouth very wide. The fork goes into the mouth extremely slowly, but he still manages to drop half the stuff off it (this is particularly bad with spaghetti), and then he chews, and chews, and chews. Needless to say I leave the table as soon as I’ve finished.

I’ve finally had enough and done away with them. It wasn’t difficult, I just turned the fire’s gas supply on while they were dozing. Shame about Otto.

This is what happened when Arthur (wabbit) tried to introduce himself to Merlin (cat). Both of these animals have the privilege of living with Trillion.

Observe how the feline retains a height advantage at all times. How the lupine party in the dance desperately tries to get closer, to gain the cat’s trust, to become his friend…

Merlin is the wimpiest cat on the planet. He’s a bit of a prima donna too. Not like any of my gorgeous specimens, they’d have ripped the rabbit’s head off within 30 seconds!

Well, it looks like they’ve been VERY busy.

Stealing my name and then doing sod-all with it. Bloody bastards.

I love oranges; I eat about three every day. But why do they have to be such bloody hard work? You spend ages peeling the bastards, the juice burns your skin and squirts in your eyes, you get bits of pith under your nails and you don’t half hurt your thumbs as you try-very-hard-to-get-the-very-tight-skin-off.

Phew.

You get so stressed peeling them that you need a lie down afterwards – you don’t realise that you’ve been holding your breath during the procedure.

Getting the peel off is only the first part; prizing the things into segments can result in further showers of citric acid and juicier ones sometimes fall apart completely.

You don’t get that sort of trouble with a Twix.

Parents and crap food
My parents buy good fresh food. However, they aren’t the richest folk in the world and they’ll generally go the for cheaper alternative over certain things. These compromises can sometimes send me spinning into a rage.

• Bacon: I don’t eat bacon that often, so when I do indulge, it has to be proper. Imagine the disappointment when I discover that Mother has bought some cheap shit that falls apart wehn you try to separate the rashers. Not like Trillion, she treats me properly.
• Salsa dip: We had fajinas the other week and Mother ruined them by buying cheap crap salsa dip, rather than proper fresh salsa. Processed crap like that should just go straight in the bin without even being opened. Disgusting.
• Apples: Dad is an expert selector of oranges, melons and tomatoes, but he is utterly rubbish at finding decent apples. I don’t know why: I got to Tesco, pick up a bag of Braeburn and there you go – delish apples for all to enjoy. Dad? I’ve no idea what goes wrong, but he buys “Braeburns” that are the most powdery, disgusting, horrible things you could imagine. RUBBISH!

And they wonder why I’m grumpy.

An edit for illustrative purposes

Here is today’s sac des fruits:

Here are my hands after battling one of the oranges:

Here is the orange:

Here is the apple after I bit into it. Note the texture of the flesh – powder!

BBC News: Multiple blasts paralyse London

It seems that London has been targetted in a series of terrorist attacks this morning. No doubt the outrage felt by millions will be expressed all over the place, so there’s not much that can be added to the sentiments of others, just suffice it to say that I echo them.

Terrorists are cunts, but what they have to realise is that they’ll never be able to kill all of us and so long as we maintain a normal way of life, they’ll never win. Simple as that.

My sister Anna is a loving soul, but she’s ever so lonely. After a few relationships that have ended badly, she finds herself in her mid-thirties and single. She’s desperate to find that “special someone” to call her own so she can settle down and perhaps even start a family before it’s too late and everything shrivels up like fruit on the vine.

I don’t understand why Anna has problems finding the perfect someone; she’s witty, intelligent, kind, loving – everything you could possibly want in a person (obviously she’s not as witty, kind, loving or intelligent as me, but who is?). Anyway, if you think you might like to get in touch with her and perhaps start some correspondence via the electronic super-duper ether, you can do so through me.

Perhaps you’d like to see her? OK then, click here.

Thanks for taking the time to think of Anna.

It’s great when people only half hear things. Take this scenario. Our scene involves a Cakesniffer (that’ll be moi), a chap called Alan and a young lass called Kuriman.

Alan is the sweetest bloke you could ever meet. He’s a lovely family man who adores his wife and two girls. He works very hard to provide for them and is extremely consciencious (fuck knows how to spell that). I don’t think I’ve ever heard him swear and he tends to opt for “crumbs” a lot as a safe alternative. He was once described as very Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and I was thrilled when he once ordered ginger beer to drink on a work’s night out.

Tina “So is that current then?”
Alan “Current?”
Kuriman “Sorry, did you want me Alan?”
Tina “No, he said current“
Kuriman “Oh right, it’s just that you don’t really hear Alan swear that often”

Brilliant.

Dereliction of blogging duties
Yep, I’m not as prolific as usual at the moment. I seem to have found a sort of social life and these extra hours eat into my evenings until about 9.30-10pm on the nights when I work. As I can’t blog from Base 1, it seems that I’m not doing much. I apologise.