Tidy

Possibly even scarier than yesterday, but a right punch up the snoot for those who said it couldn't be done.

But, cocking a snook at the devil's dandruff of asbestosis, it's a necessary evil.

Normal chaos resumed on Monday week.

In training

Protein, carbs, and oleaginous vein-blocker

I am informed that Mr Dicky 'Mad' Evans, has entered himself upon the London Marathon listings for next year.

"I know I can do it. It's all about the training," he said, over his fourth pint of Magners.

"The sixteen weeks after Christmas are crucial, especially on building up the stamina. But I'm no slacker. I've already started, " he announced through a cloud of Marlboro Light smoke.

"I've been watching my diet and making sure I get all the right nutrients. It's very important that the body gets the necessary inputs. Absolutely essential if I'm going to make it past the first 300 yards."

It is good, then, to know that he now resides in Winchmore Hill where "Agatha's fish and chip emporium" - just across the road from the station, ensuring that no excess energy is used - is able to cater to his physical well-being, as it did so superbly last night.

Keep up the good work, lad!

Subterfugical

No! Don't be afraid - it's me in my superhero disguise.

Here I am as the Master of Secrets!

I was cackling in an evil sort of way at the time.

Spectacular!

For purposes of clarity I am trying to identify a suitable pair of looney-ettes.

I should say here and nowtofore that I do not NEED such nasal-perching accoutrements for any visual incompetency. I have perfect 20 (Twenty) - 20 (Twenty) eyesighting and can see a laydee wearing a paternity suit coming at me a mile off.

No, the glassy-oracular knick-knacks are simply an accessory which make me look slightly less distinguished than I am. I was finding that a number of people seemed to be intimidated by my grand self and were holding back from offering to buy me a drink.

Obviously this simply cannot be allowed to go on.

Clubbable

A lot of people often say they find me quite clubbable.

Here I am rolling out of a rather tacky nightspot at which I was forced to put in a celebrity-star appearance while in Chesterinium.

Word got out I was in town and I was prevailed upon.

Not a patch on Club Derrig, of course, and I made several recommendations to the club owner about ways of keeping the clientele down to a more manageable five or six.

The owner very kindly offered to show me the door, but as you can see I found it perfectly easily myself.

Didn't look that special a door to me.

Roaming ruin

Ius, Colinus Derrigus, wasus atus Chesteriniumus thisus weekendus.

I was priviliged to visit the site of the Official World's Largest Amphitheatre (as recognised by Harry Twit, the barman at Chesterinium's most welcoming pub the Marlborough Arms, as also recognised by Mr.Twit.).


It was a glorious and imposing site, despite being in a right old two-and-eight. Old lumps of stone all over the place and a nunnery plonked on top of it. Very impressive.

The people of Chesterinium are in an uproar.

As am I most Friday evenings.

Star split shocker

Fame forced incognitoity on the pair.

I have been following the troubles embracing the amorous pair of Maddo and Rich Guy.

Can I say now that I was right all along as usual as I predicted this on learning of their marriage all those years ago.

"It won't last till Christmas", are the very words I used.

And it hasn't. Still more than two months to go till the festive season and they split like an over-ripe puffin.

I blame, of course, very dirty dancing. All that rubbing of legs and tight outfits.

Having said that, now Maddo and Rich are no longer an item, and I - being a single man with a strong interest in dragging myself by fair means or foul out of the ongoing credit crunchie - I would like to put myself forward.

Yes, readers, you read it a-right: I am tendering myself - body and brain -out on a strictly cash-for-Col basis.

I have the looks, the skills, and the years of experience needed to cope with the likely demands that will be made upon me.

I am experienced in fantasy and role play, many laydeez having told me I make a very good "heavy".

My body has been honed to adapt to long periods of sitting around waiting with short bursts of intensive activity between.

I don't mind doing the same thing over and over again until it's finished, just to get it perfect for a demanding sort.

So yes, Rich Guy, send me a script - I'm gagging for a part in your next film!

Cash-strapped

"...a rich and famous lifestyle..."

Club Derrig has been just as hard hit as the banks and other financial institutions as we are all washed over by a tidal wave of credit crunchings. And I have been financially smashed on a personal basis.

No longer can I this week live a rich and famous lifestyle.

In the words of Gordo Broon, our beloved Chancellor, "With exogenous fertility, it has been shown that the government can mandate the first-best outcome by simply imposing the socially optimal transfer. By contrast, with endogenous fertility, the government can no longer enforce this outcome."

I couldn't have put it better, or more intelligibly, myself.

This is at the heart of why Club Derrig will be unable to extend any further credit provisions between now and Friday, and is in the process of approaching Mad Dicky "Cashbuilder" Evans for a bail-out-rescue-type-have-a-wedge-why-don't-you-23%-daily-interest Plan.

We don't have much choice.

While the Boss Cat's away...

Yes, we're having a rare oul' time of it while the Boss Cat is across the great water backing up O'Bama, or "The Big B.O." as we like to call him.

The Boss Cat has landed

I am priviliged to report that the Boss Lady is out of the country.

Good for lucky old US.

Yee-hah!

Twigs and banners

Last Friday I was whisked around London on a non-stoppered tour of the finest drinking holes and other places, Club Derrig being closed for the removal of cancer-stuff.

I commenced the evening joining my local would-be MP and her newly-appointed protegee in that highly-respected booze shop "Marbles". It was a delightful hour ruined only by the presence of Cap'n Richards, Evans the Money, and the Genius Amanuensis Williams. Still, there were paid-for drinks to be supped. One or two stiffners in there, but mainly they could see I was in hot-politico chat mode and would have no time for the laydeez.

From there a short stagger to the Bar-Bellow where the party I was supposed to meet phoned on my mobility phone to advise they had repaired in disgust to the Dolphinarium. Apparently the Bar Bellow staff are not up to the high standards demanded by Beattie and his upper-crusty toff crowd. Hell's bells - what is the world coming to? We had already paid for a jug of Screaming Top-Knot Fancy and couldn't leave it undrunk. Are we not men? Give that flagon here, you knave!

So, to the Dolphinarium, and don't spare the horse-leather! Crowded with drunks and layabouts and men in silky Calvins. Much like Derrig Towers on a Sunday afternoon with Beattie.

Boozy. More boozy. Boozy boozy boozy!

And a little drinky-winky. Drinky, drinky.

Toilet.

Drinky. Boozy. Drinky. Boozy. Drinky. Boozy. Drinky.

Boozy boozy boozy.

GERONIMO! GET OUT OF MY WAY!

All of sudden I'm wheeled, brain akimbo, into the Roondhoose for a performance by those plucky North Sea Gas boys. And its chaos.

FLAGS! TWIGS! PLUS-FOURS!

You! You beardy twit in the flat cap! I can't see a bloody thing. Move aside. I said MOVE ASIDE!

And it all went dark.

All in all a pretty depressing night, summed up by me through the medium of monochromatic gurning.

So...define me a "celebrity"

Nicker Campbell and Shelagh Foggy

Apparently these two no-marks qualify as celebrities!

Yes, these are two of the 'celebrity' team that has caused Team CD to be bumped from its planned recording for an appearance on Smartarses.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but I thought you had to at least be on the radio or telly to qualify to be dubbed a sleb.

I am quite literally outrageous. It seems anything goes in these days of dumbing-up.

The high price of fame

Beattie has revealeth unto me his fears about being unable to walk down the street unrecognised anymore.

"Even without being on the telly yet I get stopped in the street and these women are asking me the time or for directions or whatever. Once I've been exposed to the world on Smartarses, it'll be never ending."

He said hopefully.

Sticky fingers

Every spiv needs a hobby, I suppose.

Photo of the week 1

In spite of my interluding, people and admirers still forward me up these sort of pictures.

What can it all mean?

Game on

In spite of good intentions to withold my bloggings I am forced into cybernautism by the news that I have been plucked out.

Yes - that's right - I have been given a bye from the indignity of the shortlisting process straight to a head-to-head with the Smartarses.

Of course, I will be escorted by my 5 man back-up crew to carry sandwiches and whatnot, but it really is a case of "Game on"!

I know I've blogged about the nemeses I will have to face in this trial of brain-strength, but in the end it all comes down to one man.

One man who can upset my undoubted path to glory.

One man who can upturn the cart of apples.

One man who can snatch humbling miserable defeat from the jaws of what should be a glorious victory.

Yes, it's just one man who is my true nemesis in this adventure.

It's him again.

A pause for thought

I am interluding my bulletins to the world for a short period whilst I accumulate myself unto the more arcane bits of knowledge to be needed unto for the Smartarses.

If you have questions you would like to put to me, send them to the usual address and I will wrench my brain for you.

Nemesis 5

Kevin 'Superbrain' Smartarse

Yes, you heard it right, I am a shortlisted contender to pit my brains against the top quizzers in the world of it.

I am especially keen to get my brain up against Kevin, the Quiet One.

I like his no-nonsense style of unembellished answering and look forward to asking him such questions as "If you could be anyone for a day - anyone alive now, or from the whole of human history, even a fictional character - who would you choose to be?"

I very much doubt his answer would be: Dicky "Accountant-To-Be" Evans.

Smartarse Update

It appears that the 'Smartarses' crew have been forced to pick up the gauntlet I tossed before them.

Curiously, their acceptance of my challenge is described as 'going on the shortlist'.

Nemesis 4

Chris - the one who knows about trains

Say no more.

Except that, Christopher Huge (born 1947) is one of Britain's leading quizzers.

Huge has been a winner of Masterbrain 1983, International Masterbrain, and Mind of Britain, 2005.

He was a contestant on Missing Link where he answered every question correctly. However he did not reach the final round as his fellow contestants voted him off in order to avoid facing him in the final.

Whilst Missing Link's host, Anne Robinson, usually says farewell contestants with a heartless "You are the weakest link - Goodbye!" she instead commented that he was the strongest link they had ever had and said goodbye to him with a much more sincere "Goodbye Chris".

He can currently be seen on the BBC Two quiz show Smartarses, hosted by Dermot Murderman on which quiz teams from around Britain compete against a team of quizzers.

He has sometimes stated in his introduction that he is still the International Masterbrainer champion, since the competition has not been held since 1983. Git.

On the show, one of Huge's trademarks is to not only answer the question, but to also give the viewers a brief (ha! some chance!) history on what ever subject the question is about.

Hughes has worked as an underground train driver for London Transport and a station master and driver for British Railways. As such, he is particularly good - or spectacularly boring, depending on your POV - with questions involving trains and railways, particularly the British networks: his specialist subject for Masterbrain was British steam locomotives, 1929–1963.

Sports questions are usually Huge's only problem area as he takes little interest in any form of professional sport, describing football as "opium for the masses".

He was born in Ponderers End, Enfield, Middlesex, and attended Enfield Grammar School.

Known to his mates as El Smuggo.

Robotwatch 8

Read this and see what YOU think:

"Thanks to the Kanagawa Institute of Technology’s Air Pressure suit, in the very near future the elderly will have super strength. The suits would be used by old people to get around and lift things more easily. And it would be just as beneficial to their caregivers, who need to carry them around. The wearer can lift a person as heavy as 100 kilos as if they were carrying only half that weight.

Admittedly, the suit is clunky, and yes it likely takes a long time to put on. It also weighs 66 pounds."

So - my question is : what if an elderly person does manage to actually put one on?

My answer is: We are setting ourselves up for a world where elderly people stomp around in robot exoskeletons, complaining about rock music and how “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore”. The next thing you know Grandma is throwing a car at you! A world where robots evolved from little old ladies? It could happen. And soon.

Our only hope is to start treating your elders with respect NOW. They like revenge.

(With thanks to BotJunkie.)