😎
Former scientist, now graduated to a life of leisure;
Family man (which may surprise the family - it certainly surprises him);
Likes cycling and old-fashioned B&W film photography;
Dislikes greasy-pole-climbing 'yes men';
Thinks Afterlife (previously known as Thea Gilmore) should be much better known than she is;
Values decency over achievement.
As her wedding day nears, I’ve been told by a friend that her partner is self-converting a cargo van into a camper.
The dream…
In fact, the last I heard was that he had ‘borrowed’ their spare-bed mattress, sawn off its end to fit, and installed it on the van floor.
Reality?
Who says romance is dead?😂 Anyway, here’s wishing them all the best…
Though their union was of love filled with laughter And they lived happily, of course, ever after, Their marital bed Was a mattress they spread In the back of a VW Crafter!
An article in the Metro’s online news website amused me this week, reporting as it did on a lightning strike in the United States. The thunderbolt resulted in an explosion that destroyed a family’s bathroom after it struck their septic tank and ignited the methane gas that had accumulated within it.
According to the Metro, the building’s entire plumbing system was destroyed by a flashover travelling through pipework into the house. The lavatory pan shattered and ceramic shrapnel damaged the bathroom walls which led the householder to declaim “I’m just glad none of us were on the toilet.”
All of which brings us to this week’s ALAW in a tasteless homage to topicality and current events…
With his bowels in a volatile state He endured a combustible fate. When their contents unloaded The dunny exploded. It must have been something he ate!
Well, we’ve had Callie the pup for a week-and-a-half now and she seems to be a real outdoorsy dog. Not surprising as she’s from a working breed.
We’re trying to encourage her to pee and poo in the same accessible place so that (i) she doesn’t scorch our lawn and (ii) we can easily clean up any mess. At the moment, we can see where she pees and can take steps to ‘move her on’ to our preferred area; however, she tends to do her other ‘business’ in the deepest and darkest recesses of the rhododendron and buddleia border.
Whoops! I crapped in the border again 😉
Whereas I can venture into the depths of the border to bag up any mess during the brighter daytime hours, it is impossible to do so in the evening or early morning when the light is not so good.
… and guess what that means? That’s right – a lavatorial limerick!
In a crepuscular battle of wits That puppy of mine is the pits. ‘Cos it’s never a riddle To know where she’ll piddle But I never can find where she sh*ts
Conservative: (droning) Well… speaking as the Conservative candidate I just drone on and on and on and on without letting anyone else get a word in edgeways, until I start foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards. Ooo-aaahhh. (THUD)
🎶Consider yourself at home Consider yourself one of the family🎶
A verse inspired by our newest family member, Bordeaux Callie, a nine-week-old BC puppy…
A pup’s mum and dad may bequeath To their offspring a fine set of teeth, But let us be clear You’ve nothing to fear, Unless, it appears, you’re a leaf!
I’ve always wanted a Brompton folding bicycle, so what do you think was the chance of Management getting herself a new electric Brompton and me acting in an entirely composed and mature manner?
Quite right, no chance; “If you’re having one then so am I!” was the measured response, so, many £££ later, we find ourselves camped at Rosemarkie with his’n’hers e-Bromptons at the ready for a 21 mile power-assisted round trip to Cromarty.
The outward leg on a single-track road along the spine of the Black Isle was a hoot. The first part was all uphill for at least three miles and it was a breeze; cue a pair of smug grins. Then downhill into Cromarty – our first time there and it’s a lovely wee place – for a hardly-deserved tea stop.
The route.
Unfortunately we then got drenched in a heavy rain shower and thought about folding the bikes and catching a bus back to Rosemarkie (try doing that with a normal bike), but decided instead to set off and cycle back via the Cromarty Firth coast road.
Or at least I thought we were going to set off. Looking back I couldn’t see Management so, after a few minutes, I retraced my steps thinking she must be chatting to someone. She was, to a German chap who was asking if she was all right as she lifted herself off the grass verge after a controlled fall that was her only means of getting to a position from which she could untangle her shoelace that had wrapped itself around her chainwheel.
The route back was slightly longer than the outward trip and involved another seemingly endless uphill drag. We’d swapped batteries at the bottom because Management’s was already partly discharged when we’d set off and her’s was running out of juice. That meant she got full power assist to the top using my battery whereas I had to be more cautious using hers and work harder.
It is testament to the capabilities of these batteries and motors that she gradually pulled away to crest the hill several hundred metres ahead of me when I’m supposed to be the cyclist in the family. Still, we both got there and had a long, fast downhill run back into Rosemarkie.
The Bromptons at rest while their batteries are recharged
… and here’s the limerick…
To avoid a whole lot of pain A lady should always refrain From crashing her bike – or exploits suchlike – When her shoelace gets stuck in her chain.
… and Management at rest while her batteries are likewise recharged
It’s not long now before we pick up a new addition to the family, an eight week old Border Collie pup (subject to a vet check, of course). We’ve whittled down a long list of possible names and the favoured one right now is ‘Callie’ (we’re getting a girl) which is short for ‘Bordeaux Callie’.
The ‘Bordeaux’ bit was an afterthought and only included because it’s the sort of play-on-words that amuses me. Firstborn added to it by suggesting ‘Brigitte Bordeaux’, which also amused me, but if I’m calling for a dog across parkland I think ‘Callie’ will suffice.
No! It’s Bordeaux CALLIE😁
I’ve been told that owning a Border Collie will be challenging and I should have gone for a labrador (yawn!), but I’ve known a couple of them in my time and neither was as challenging as is often stated. Mind you, here’s what the YourPureBredDog website says about the breed…
“One of the most intelligent of all breeds, the Border Collie is also one of the most challenging to live with.”
“His superior intellect, combined with his intensity and obsessive zeal for working, are his most impressive features – and also the ones that make him unsuitable for most homes.”
“Without physical and mental stimulation, Border Collies become hyperactive and will drive you up the wall with obsessive and destructive behaviors as they seek creative outlets for their physical and mental energy.”
“High intelligence does mean they learn very quickly – but that includes learning how to do anything they set their minds to. They are master escape artists who can virtually pick the lock on your gate.”
“You must stay one step ahead of this challenging breed, and most households are simply not up to the task.”
“Well”, he says confidently, “we’ll see, won’t we?”. Here’s the limerick:
They said ’twas the ultimate folly, And asked had he gone off his trolley, When he let them all know He was shortly to go And bring home a young Border Collie!
Postscript 1: Such is the way of the world these days, that I thought that I should Google ‘Bordeaux Callie’ just to make sure the name had no unsavoury connotations. I didn’t find an exact match, but apparently Callie Bordeaux was the name of a character played by Lindsay Wagner in a TV movie from 1981 called ‘Callie & Son’. “No”, I’d never heard of it either. Anyway, it’s good to know that our pup’s name won’t be conflated with that of a courtesan from a French city!
Postscript 2: Although we are buying a pup from a registered breeder, we are doing so only after trying for a young rescue collie. There were some around, but they were either taken very quickly (I missed out on two of them by fractions – I had real chemistry with one of them, Polly) or they were completely off the wall having not been socialised properly and requiring a very experienced owner with lots of land!
This week saw the United Kingdom’s image demeaned worldwide by the sight of a group of its elected representatives turning their backs when the European anthem, Ode To Joy’ was played at the opening of the newly-elected European Parliament.
Embarrassing the UK
It was a shameful and puerile attempt to garner cheap publicity by the Brexit Party, led by Nigel Farage and, in the view of some, it was reminiscent of the Nazi party turning its back on the speaker of the Reichstag in 1926.
Indeed, it may be considered more than shameful as Farage has been identified as an alleged fascist on more than one occasion.
In 2013, the Independent newspaper ran a story headed “Nigel Farage schooldays letter reveals concerns over fascism” in which it reported that “Channel 4 News obtains a letter about Ukip leader Nigel Farage, from his days as a schoolboy, in which teachers are quoted as accusing him of being “racist” and “fascist”. Later, a former schoolfriend ‘outed’ him in a similar manner.
Farage has, of course, denied those claims, but one can’t help but recall Mandy Rice-Davies’ response when rebutting Lord Astor’s denial of an affair at the time of the Profumo scandal: “Well he would, wouldn’t he?”.
And then? Well, we then had the unedifying and grossly offensive sight of former UK minister Anne Widdicombe seeking to compare the UK’s exit from the EU with the emancipation of slaves during the nineteenth century. That is the point at which, for once, I agree with one of the Conservative party’s current ministers, David Gauke, who recently said:
“A willingness by politicians to say what they think the public want to hear, and a willingness by large parts of the public to believe what they are told by populist politicians, has led to a deterioration in our public discourse.”
“Rather than recognising the challenges of a fast-changing society require sometimes complex responses, that we live in a world of trade-offs, that easy answers are usually false answers, we have seen the rise of the simplifiers.”
“In deploying this sort of language, we go to war with truth.”
Here’s the limerick:
So, Farage and his execrable chums Showed the electorate that if it succumbs To the lies they propound They’ll soon turn around And show that they’re nothing but bums.
As we are nearing D-day (Dog-day, that is) and the prospect of housing and training a border collie pup morphs into reality, we were keen to watch Puppy School, a programme that was ostensibly about dealing with certain puppy-related behavioural issues. Except it wasn’t, it was mostly about their idiot owners and we learned nothing except ‘don’t be an idiot’.
On reading a review of the programme, I came across this wee gem from the Graun’s Tim Dowling; the quote that made me laugh:
Along the way the viewer is provided with some basic dog training tips by the experts. In order to keep control of your dog in the park, they suggest that you “be really fun to be around”. Yeah, thanks – if I could manage that, I wouldn’t need a puppy in the first place.
It reminded me of a former colleague’s humorous-but-heartfelt comment after a number of lasses visited his office in succession on the day he first brought his young dog to work…
If I’d known a dog could have that effect, then maybe my teenage years wouldn’t have been so lonely!
Sadly for him, managers soon reminded staff that you were not allowed to take your dog to work. Shame really, ‘cos his was a from a working breed.
You must be logged in to post a comment.