It's a Dog Year!

Kung Hey Fat Choi!

Yesterday was Chinese New Year, this one being the year of the Dog. WooHoo. And where better to celebrate than... er, London ;)

Chinese Lanterns

We arrived in Trafalgar Square in time to catch mayor Ken Livingston's speech and that of the Chinese Ambassador and, get this, we even saw the Red Arrows! Except that, due to some reason or another, they couldn't fly and all the pilots filed onto the stage (not in formation) to which our lady compere uttered

"As you can see, they're not in their planes!"

NO! You don't say... and...

"Red is a lucky colour which is why they're wearing red" (flightsuits)

Er, excuse me dear, I think it's because they're the red arrows...

So after our pre-schooling we watched the dragon dances, more dragon dances, went off to Leicester Square to queue for noodles, got deafened by firecrackers, hit Chinatown for more dragon dances and a crowd crush where I had to struggle to stop the idiot hordes from quite literally squeezing the air out of my lungs and breaking any more ribs!

Then more firecrackers, snacking on dragon's beard candy and then finally the temperature dropped below zero so we headed for home. Via the London Eye, of course, lit up in red just for the ocassion :)

Wealth, health, happiness, prosperity & success to you all.

Kung Hey Fat Choi!

Lucy don't like my Cheese

We showed up at BBC TV's Studio 8 last night for the filming of the comedy show pilot for "That Mitchell & Webb Look"...

Who? David Mitchell. Robert Webb. You know, the guys who did "Peep Show" and "That Mitchell & Webb Sound" on Radio 4... Ah, never mind.

The stand-up comedy chick, Lucy Porter, kept the audience amused inbetween the filming and the VT runs though when she asked where we were from, Yours Truly shouted out "Farnborough"... to which she asked my name, age and what was my favourite cheese! She was impressed with the speed of my answer to the cheese question but admitted she didn't like my choice so we weren't gonna work out.

Oooh, put-down. Methinks she performed a swift psychological profiling, equated the rapid reply of "Gorgonzola" as the fromage du soiree for a potential heckler/psychopath and ditched me quicker than an anthrax inhaler. Last year at the Comedy Club, when Paul Merton wanted suggestions for the ad-libbing of a sketch, I shouted "doggy style" and they ran with it.

But no, she was funny and great with the less dangerous members of society, picking out Thor's beard, a bookshop manager and a lot of students from the audience for a bit of idle banter on the joys of living in Elephant & Castle, what the scientist Michael Farraday did and her hatred of "The DaVinci Code" and lack of passion for chart music.

So the show was good fun, it was interesting to see the filming and the sketches, especially the alcoholic snooker commentators ("ooh, that's a bad miss"), the caveman cop show, the reluctant German SS officer discussing the cons of having a skull for a regimental badge ("Well it's better than a rat's arse!") and the bizarre quiz show NumberWang!!

It'll be great if the series takes off on BBC2 sometime...

...though I wonder what would've happened if I'd not worn a bright red t-shirt and said "Port Salut" instead?

1st Essex Festival of Filth

Saturday

6am: get up
7am: drive to Essex
8am: arrive Essex, Epping Forest to be exact. Everyone else is there. Time to get dirty.

Haven't been back to Essex in a couple of years so it was nice to be not far from one of my childhood stomping grounds, this time with the mountain bike in the muddy depths of Epping Forest. The mud was so thick my brakes failed multiple times and changing gear, if it happened, was a complete sod.

So... just a couple of pics to show you the filth we had in Essex... there's a piece of engineering underneath that mud somewhere...

Call Centre

The batphone rings

Lever: "Hello?"

[Asian subcontinent voice]

Call centre guy:"Are you the owner of the business?"

Nice intro. Which school of charm did you attend, pray tell?

Lever: "Yes I am, what can I do for you?"
Call centre guy: "It's about the cost of your telephone calls..."
Lever: "Can I stop you right there please? I don't need to change my service, I'm very happy with what I've got already."
Call centre guy: "Ah yes, but the call costs..."
Lever: "You will not be able to beat my call costs, they are SO cheap."

The guy gets angry with me...

Call centre guy: "I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!"
Lever: "Well let's put it this way..."

[click]
He hangs up

Lever: "...if you had the common courtesy to just wait until I'd finished I'd tell you that my calls are a business expense and are paid for by a client so they're actually FREE. How's THAT for cheap you rude little bastard?"

Nuke Silo = Ancient Monument???

So my mate T calls on Saturday and in the conversation mentions he passed by Greenham Common that day. Now for those of you who don't know it RAF Greenham Common is, as the name implies, common land, for use by the people, but commandeered by the RAF for time as an airstrip. It was used in WWII by the US 101st Airborne for glider ops in Normandy 1944, later for the US Strategic Air Command in the '50s for carrying nuclear payloads and later again, from 1980 onwards, for the deployment of cruise missiles, aka NUKES!

Back in the '80s the place was renowned for its women's peace camp and at one stage as many as 300,000 people linked hands around the base in protest against the nuclear missiles being there! Hundreds of people were arrested, as you can imagine. You could also score good weed there, or so I'm told.

So, I went and had a butchers at the place, it's only 30 minutes away, and in the last 6/7 years it has been decomissioned and turned back into natural heathland where nature flourishes, animals once again graze and people come and go; flying kites, walking, biking, watching birds, letting their dogs crap and their kids cycle there. Though that last combination worries me now I've written it :S The peace camp left when the nukes did, so all's well that ends well :)

And I started with Nuke Silo = Ancient Monument??? Yes I did. And here's why I ask the question... These nuclear silos are only 50 years old and yet the site is designated as an "Ancient Monument"!!???

Choose my next book...

OK folks, I know there's fewer of you out there than there were before Christmas but here's your chance to choose the next book for me to read. I already have a stack of them piled up and waiting to be devoured, it's up to you to pick which one I do next and why...

So here's the contenders, in no particular order...

"Electrician's Guide to Building Regulations"
"Catch 22" - Joseph Heller
"The Satanic Verses" - Salman Rushdie
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" - Tom Wolfe
"Built to Last" - James C Collins & Jerry I Porras
"The Making of a Philosopher" - Colin McGinn
"Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies" - Noam Chomsky
"The Housebuilder's Bible: An Insider's Guide to the Construction Jungle, 6th Edition" - Mark Brinkley
"No One Here Gets Out Alive: The Biography of Jim Morrison" - Jerry Hopkins & Danny Sugerman
"Hegemony or Survival : America's Quest for Global Dominance" - Noam Chomsky
"Pedalling to Hawaii: A Human Powered Adventure Across the Western Hemisphere" - Stevie Smith

And a last minute entry, no wait, TWO (it they ~~wasn't~~ weren't in the "To Read" pile)

"Human Punk" - John King
"Hawkwind: Sonic Assassins" - Ian Abrahams

Bloggers, it's over to you... :)

Buffing my Helmet

Everyone needs protection at some stage in their lives and I decided that this year is no exception.

I walk into the shop, specifically looking for the thing to slip over my head, that protection that may one day save my life.

Haha, just my luck, I am instantly approached by a pretty girl assistant.

She asks me if I know my size. I do. I know it exactly, it's quite big, though I dare not boast for the sake of modesty and the undue attention it may afford me. I tell her. She laughs and says she can't do the exact size but would a large one fit over it? I shrug, sheepishly, she shows me a selection from her range of large ones. OMG - They seem to come in all sorts of shapes & colours these days, some of them even have strange protruberencies - I shudder to think what they're for!!!

Ah, a nice simple one, functional, safe, strong. I pick a colour I like and squeeze it over my head. Perfect.

I offer to take that particular one lest anyone else touches it; really, they don't know where I've been. But the girl gets a new box out and places it on the counter in full view of all the other customers. She offers to buff my helmet and fit the anti-fogging device but I kindly decline, pay and walk away knowing I have great protection to put on when I go out adventuring again.

Buffing my Helmet

I tell BBFK the whole story. Her Response?

"I'll buff her chin with my fist!"

LMFAO. Feisty!!! *growl*

3 Sugars please...

OK. Apologies for not posting, it's been kinda busy with that Christmas thing, New Year and the multiple family disorder... But a Belated Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everybody :) Hopefully everyone with a mobile phone got our messages :D

BBFK touched down last Wednesday and this is what we've done...

Visited Windsor Castle
Hit the Tumbledown Dick for a Jam tribute band
Dined @ my local curry house the Cove Tandoori
Walked the Hawley Woods and had lunch by the open fire in the Mead Hall, an old French barn/pub. (Serving Adnam's Broadside)
Shopped in Farnborough (yawn) and Guildford (yay)
Drove to Devon to stay at my dad's cottage
Lunched in 14th Century pubs (The Ship, Sidmouth - fine pint of Otter Best)
More lunch in an 18th Century quayside pub (Royal Standard, Lyme Regis - Nice pint of Palmers Copper Ale) and down to the beach again
Seeing historic Winchester & a guided tour of Winchester Cathedral (original foundations date back to 1079)