Head Jogs

One should never condemn a man's astonishingly beautiful head of hair simply because of his murderous and tyrannical ways.

On bathing alone

Can I just say what a delight it is to have had burly builders up my premises for the past week or so and not once did they ask me to fill a bucket for them from my monthly soak-water.

Presidential partnerships

I have been asked to enclarificate the position as regards the Mrs Sarkozy de France and myself.

I should start by saying that I have always been an admirer of the Italo-Garlic song-thrush and former model Carlo Brown.

I am though - despite what is said about me behind closed portes - a respecter of the marital union as codified in the relevant countries' legal systems as far afield as Sark and the Isle of Man.

So, it's a big "No" to the rumours.

Having said that, if she were to make it known to me through her agents that she was unhappy in her marriage to le petit President, I would of course be happy to oblige.

More balls boy

I have been plead unto by a McGee who shall remain unnameable for a picture of himself indeed at the annual Billious McGilby Footie Hootenanny-Drink-Up, Cough-Up awards in aid of retired Scottish professional hopefuls.

Needless to say this request only came about because of the McGee in question having TOTALLY THRASHED TO A SNIVELLING LAUGHING STOCK A TEAM LED BY A FURTHER NAMELESS GILBY.

Sport, eh? Can you imagine how different our chances as the UK on the world stage would be if these types were actually fit and healthy?

Word of the week 12

Unconsciously speaking

Top Irish speaker Dairmid O'Chatterbox

Grammar derived from Irish

Like other Celtic languages, Irish has no words for "yes" and "no", instead the verb in a question is repeated in an answer. People in Ireland have a tendency to use this pattern of avoiding "yes" or "no" when speaking English:

"Are you finished debugging that software?" "I am."
"Is your mobile charged?" "It is."

Irish verbs have two present tenses, one indicating what is occurring at this instant and another used for continuous actions. For example, 'you are now' is tá tú anois (literally 'are you now'), but 'you are every day' is bíonn tú gach lá (literally 'be you each day').
Irish speakers of English use a "does be/do be" (or "bes", although less frequently) construction to indicate this latter continuous present:

"He does be coding every day."
"They do be talking on their mobiles a lot."
"They bes doing a lot of work at school."

Irish uses the same phrase tar eis to mean "after" and as a modifier on a verb to indicate that the activity is recently completed. As a result Irish people tend to use a construction where they use "after" as a verb modifier:
"I am just after rebooting the computer just a few minutes ago."

It is also common to end sentences with 'no?' or 'yeah?'

"He's not coming today, no?" Níl sé ag teacht inniú, nach bhfuil?
"The bank's closed now, yeah?" Tá an banc dúnta anois, an bhfuil?

Irish English also always uses the "light l" sound, and the pronunciation of the letter 'h' as 'haitch' is standard.

When describing something, Irish people may describe this as something that is 'in it', which can also be translated into English as 'so it is'.

The day that is in it. An lá atá ann.
That's John, so it is. Is Seán e, atá ann.

A person or place may be described as being 'where it's at', as this is the translation of the verb to have:

That's where it's at. Sin e an ait atá sé aige.

Similarly, somebody who can speak a language, 'has' a language.

She doesn't have Irish. Níl Gaeilge aici.

Another idiom is this thing or that thing described as 'this here man ' or 'that there man ', which also features in Newfoundland English in Canada.

This here man. An fear seo.
That there man. An fear sin.

I print the above for purposes of enclarificationery, and as a learned rebuke to those questioning my authorial skills and oratorical oratory.

So, hear me now! I am and always will be of the type to mangle the auld Garlic but only according to my origins and bring-uppery.

Sure, it's like the way I do tell 'em.

Lock up your daughters

Scenario: You are getting on well with someone in the course of an evening's dalliancing. You think you might want to 'take them home' for a 'coffee-cup and jammie dodger'. But - alarm bells start ringing - the old skidmarked sheets back at your bachelor pad haven't been changed for a few weeks. Since, in fact, about the time you cancelled Mrs.Winterbottom coming in to 'do' for you in case the neighbours thought there was aomething going with her and you.

What a predicament!

Here's my top tip: pretend you've lost your keys. End up back at Ben's for the night and Bob's your Dad's bro.

Never say I don't give you anything.

Robotwatch 5: Row-back on robots

The scoundrel and future-scare addict Wackso-me-Jackso Jackson - or Il Papa to his acolytes - has found his position on the robot takeover by 2020 untenable.

In a long, dense, and incomprehensibly drunken monologue occurring for upward of 46 minutes the other night he conceded that 2020 was "an unlikely and somewhat premature date for a complete takeover of the planet by robots".

"No" he later continued after refreshment and a couple of hearty lungfuls, "It'll be 2030. There's still cybertronic-neural-interface-capability issues to be resolved."

Well, that's 10 years more of us running the gaff before the Metal Mickeys get on our case.

Result.

Sobriquet corner

At his own request, the Official Committee for Application of Sobriquets (OCAS) run by yours truly has considered whether Dicky Evans should be henceforth known as 'Lionheart', in tribute to him beating a fifteen year old in a hand of cards.

After many hours mulling the decision is: No.

He is - and always will be - 'The Pilch'. End of story.

Word of the week 11

A very good year

The newly-grin-enhanced Braisers has splashed the cash and upgraded the Brais-o-phone already.

He says the new model can let him know if he's in a pub, and is - in it's post-modern-in-a-retro-stylee way - a delight to handle.

It's best feature though, is a new development which helps deal with those moments when everyone has their phone on the table. You know those times when you've all got the state of the art tiny-phones and they all look alike? Not sure which one is yours? Well this new X-phone has the capability to automatically transform itself to take on the look of its owner, banishing those problems forever! Take another look at the picture. See the resemblance to the owner?

Best of all, it's guaranteed idiot-proof.

Which is good.

Ball boy

I was delighted to host again this year the annual Billious McGilby Footie Hootenanny-Drink-Up, Cough-Up awards in aid of retired Scottish professional hopefuls.

As ever it was a complete disaster.

On a road to somewhere?

Always nice to do the open top bus tour on a sunny day.

Shame about the atrocious singing voices, though, Marge.

Benny's "Fun room"

After this I did unlike Maximum Mosley and made my excuses and left.

In T'Net

I had a babysitter in at Derrig Towers last night. I wanted to check out what it might be like if I should ever have to make actual arrangements to care for any of the many and various possibly Derrig-sprogs scattered across the globe and further.

Now, I don't know about you. Well, clearly I don't - you could be anyone happening to stumble over me in the weird world of bloggery - you could indeed be a total loon. But if you bear even the least passing resemblance to that marvel of our judicial system, to wit the Chap on the Clapham Trambus, you will of course share my opinion that one does not turn to the babysitters of this world for elucidation.

WRONG! (As JB has it.)

For she was a fount of the most esoteric erudition, and especially so on the matter of the trichologicalisticalotomic arts, or 'hair and "do's"'.

She went for hours about it while I supped on a particularly fine brandy and chomped on a Ginster's 'Megameal' pasty-in-a-tube.

I waited until she finished before exposing unto her my own hair care bunch of advisory tips, thus:

1. Get the best product available, use it liberally, aim for maximum follicle erectility;

2. Rub it in well, using the fingertips. Rub it in. Rub, rub, rub. Not too firmly. Rub. Rub, rub, rub. Mmmmmmmmm. Rub. Rub. Rub, rub, rub. Ooooooooooooh. Oh yes! Rub. Rub. Rub. Aaaaaah. Rub-rub. Come on, Monty! Rub, rub, rubby-rub, rub, rub, rub. Yesiree, hose me down with mulligatawny. Rub, rub. Rubby-rub. And.....done! Take a long bath, you've earned it.

3. Keep your beau locks in a net at night.

She was well-impressed I can tell you, but unfortunately managed to escape through a window I had left unlocked round the back.

Word of the week 10

Desperate hearts ad No.1

The Spiv has come up trumps with not just one but three - 3 - three different ads I can place in the Desperate Hearts columns of a variety of publications.

He has stressed a number of rules

RULE No.1 - That the publication is just as important as the ad in finding the right sort for a gentleman of my breeding and standing in the community;

RULE No.2 - That the advertisement be succinct. Clarity about what is wanted is of paramount paramountcy.

RULE No.3 - Be brief. One can evoke an air of mystery by not saying too much, and significant savings can be achieved on purcahsing fewer words.

My first ad will therefore be placed in The Laydee.

Here's how it goes:

GO-ER SOUGHT. Box No.2777776

Says it all.

I'm holding back the second and third ads in case this one fails to do the trick.

Not my sort at all

I have been perusing the small ads of late as I believe that there is no laydee left unturned in my ever-widening circle. Yes, I believe I may have sucked dry the pool of locally available talent. (Certain unsuitable examples exempted from my amatory wanglings, of course. You know who you are, MC Hamer.)

As chance has it, my good friend Sam "The Spiv" Oestreicher - though now burdened with a life sentence of Lady Jojojo of Toxteth - was in past times a top spreader of his unpredictable "jerky-love" movements in all corners of the 'Stow. Frequently he could seen in the early evenings slinking around the markets offering a taste of his meaty delights to passing strangers. But the 'Stow proved too small a bowl for this big fish among men.

And so, in his rampant desirings to sample further afield, he looked to the Desperate Hearts column and found a wide-range of fresh material and continued his wicked ways until he finally was ensnared by the aforesaid Jojojojo.

I have enlisted The Spiv to assist in drafting my own advertisement in order to put myself about more widely. His knowledge of the 'Scene' and its short-hand for saucy shenaniganery will be handy (WLTM for example meaning Would Like To Mount; HHLVCC - Hairy Hands Love Velvety Chubby Cheeks; BURMA - Bump Up Rump My Angel; and GSOH - Giant Shark Outside Hotel) and it will also give him once again a sense of purpose other than being a sounding-board and drudge. It will be good for his soul.

I have already commenced my research in a number of listing magazines and have been a tad disgusted with the dire quality of what is presently on offer.



I will, of course, be snapped up by the right types with the persistence to wade through the dross.

I return to this matter tomorrow, when it will be one day after today's heady celebrations of The Spiv's 49th birthday. Again.

Britney Spears

I'm having this picture of Ms Spears - painted by my own hands within oil - mounted and hung in the hallway of Derrig Towers.

Don't tell me a child of 5 could do it, because they can't. Have you seen the pictures they stick on fridges? Rubbish.

Robotwatch 4

See? It's not just me making up these warnings and worrying the sheep among you! It's the liberal intellectualsia as well.

But I was writing about this more than two weeks ago - it just goes to show how far behind the times your average journo is.

Run for the hills!

Word of the week 9

Top ranker

I use this illustration merely for illustrative purposes only and solely.

Come with me on a journey back in time to 1987, the year, that is. Hmmm, you would think, not a great year, and you would be correct.

However, now imagine alongside me if you will care to, that I am blogging back then, if the technology had been invented for me. Because of the low numbers able to access my blog the numbers reading it would be quite low, although dense in quality.

Now come through to the present day, if you can conceive of reversing our previous journey into the past. Millions more more now have the blog-reading bug and I am up there with the most read crew.

The graph gives you some idea of what I am talking about up until 2007.

I only mention this not to blow my own generously-proportioned trumpet, (a sousaphone is closer to the truth in brass instrumentation comparison analagousness) but simply to draw your attention to the number at the top of the right hand column of my blog.

3205.

Yes, I am now rated 3205 out of all blogs in the UK. A massive leap of 152 - one hundred and fifty-two - 152 places since last month.

My calculations show that if I continue to double this rate every month, by the end of the summer I will be in number 1 spot, and by the end of the year everyone on the planet will be on my blog 6 to 7 times a day.

Still, there's no need to gloat.

Let's Torq Turquay

It's an easy mistake to make.

But oh how I laughed when Twin of Evil A and her consort - the sinister Dexter 'Johnson' Johnson - announced they had ended up booking two weeks in Torquay because the travel agent couldn't understand her garbled pronunciation (owing to her vampirishly oversized incisors) of the scary couple's preferred holiday destination.

I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Then I laughed some more.

Let's hope they never want to go to VENEZUELA! (Snigger.)

Film Review VI: Escape To Victoria

Synopsis: Would you believe it? Another World War comes along. I suppose it wasn't too much of a surprise after they called the previous one World War I - a clue, methinks? Lots of famous actors who are quite good at acting at football get captured behind enemy lines as they try to destroy the bridge at Remagen: Kenneth Moor, George C.Scoot, Sir Jim Mills, Noel Cowardice, David Nivea, and Lance Percival - an all-star cast indeed. All of them trained killers.

Accommodated in the Bayern Munich football stadium for lack of decent quarters, they begin tunnelling as soon as the door is shut, Lance Percival distracting the attention of the guards with a 4-day marathon calypso rendition of "Dingleberry dangling time".

In the course of tunnelling they find a football and decide that they would be of more use to the propaganda machine playing a game against a crack Nazi squad in front of the world's press.

The Germans have a chat with Mr.Hitler, who was always up for a bit of sporting endeavour until that J.Owens super-athlete chap turned up and single-handedely won the entire 1938 Olympiad, and he won't take the risk.

Lots of evil fascist cackling "Ha hahahaha ha hahahha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahhahahhahaha! Hahah hahah hahah haha ha ha hahhhahahahahahahahaha hahaha! Hahhahahahhahahaha!" And so on.

So they are all shot.

But the plucky soccer boys carry on playing despite their lack of actual talent!

"Reggae Boys! Reggae Boys!" comes the chant from the portly chap in the goatee in the Bierkeller stand.

The final whistle gets blown and the war ends. Lots of bath-time action ensues. Scrub-a dub-dub!

(Well, that's how Monsieur Thomas Le Collaborateur described the final scene to me as I had been forced to seek out a tub of Revels.)

Col's commentary: As a long-time football afficianado I came to this film expecting it to follow the usual dreary pattern of pathetic pitch action, a lack of any demonstrable football skills, absurd one-dimensional characterisation, horrendous dialogue, and no plot worth speaking of. How right I was. Rush out and buy the superb DVD now! (No extras.)

Home again, again

I have been spending some time at home again with the auld Ma and Pa , God love 'em.

Many an hour I've spent recounting my adventures at the top of my lungs for their amusement, what with me being far and away and back again the further-most travelled of all Derrigs everywhen. More than 4 countries in 8 days - beat that anyone I dare you.

And the brandy! My family have been in the bathtub business since time immemarmoset -not that even I can remember that far ago.

Still, it's always good to be able to lend a hand and pitch in with the duties on the old homestead: rubbing the pigs, tossing the apples, and crumbing. The one thing that always gets my goats up though is the guttering.

Nary a day passes without some new hideous blockage obstructing the guttering, and forcing an overspillage of gutterscum down the walls Chez Derrig. It is a smell of awful proportions and has the deep and gloomy look of stench. For it is and it does.

So my least favoured duty is clambering up the ladder and raking through the gloop and scooping it into a huge vat kept for the purpose and collected once a month by the Gardai for use on prisoners in need of a dirty protest. And right glad of it too. The Gardai, that is.

And there am I up the ladder, Pa stationed below to keep it steady, though apt to wander off when he starts a-pondering the benefit of halving his offspring (as explained to him by Brother Brendan the Grim Inheritor in unpleasant detail.)

Yes, there I am - up the ladder.

WHICH IS NOT EXACTLY THE GREATEST LADDER IN THE WORLD.

And now I've said enough on the matter.